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s  p  e  M  #=IKI£ : 


, »  •  •  •     *  «    • 


BY 


R  W.   CHURCH 


DEAN  OF  ST.  PAUL  S 


NEW    YORK 
HARPER    &    BROTHERS,    PUBLISHERS 

FRANKLIN      SQUARE 


m 


> 


,1     ... 


ENGLISH   MEN  OF  LETTERS. 

Edited  by  John  Morley. 


Johnson Leslie  Stephen. 

Gibbon J.  C.  Morison. 

Scott R.  H.  Hutton. 

Shhllby J.  A.  Symonds. 

Hume T.  H.  Huxley. 

Goldsmith William  Black. 

Dkfob William  Minto. 

Burns J.  C.  Shairp. 

Stenser R.  W.  Church. 

Th  acker av Anthony  Trollope. 

Burke John  Morley. 

Milton Mark  Pattison. 

Hawthorne Henry  James,  Jr. 

Southey E.  Dowden. 

Chaucer A.  W.  Ward. 

Bunyan J.  A.  Froude. 

Sheridan 


Cowper Goldwin  Smith. 

Pope Leslie  Stephen. 

Byron John  Nichol. 

Locke Thomas  Fowler. 

Wordsworth F.  Myers. 

Dryden G.  Saintsbury. 

Landor Sidney  Colvin. 

De  Quincey David  Masson. 

Lamb Alfred  Ainger. 

Bentley R.  C.  Jebb. 

Dickens A.  W.  Ward. 

Gray E.  W.  Gosse. 

Swift Leslie  Stephen. 

Sterne H.  D.  Traill. 

Macaulay J.  Cotter  Morison. 

Fielding Austin  Dobson. 

.Mrs.  Oliphant. 


nmo,  Cloth,  75  cents  per  volume. 


Published  by  HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  New  York. 

XST  Any  of  the  above  works  will  be  sent  by  mail,  postage  prepaid,  to  any  part 
of  the  United  Slates,  on  receipt  of  the  price. 


1211 


NOTICE. 

As  the  plan  of  these  volumes  does  not  encourage  foot- 
notes, I  wish  to  say  that,  besides  the  biographies  prefixed 
to  the  various  editions  of  Spenser,  there  are  two  series  of 
publications  which  have  been  very  useful  to  me.  One  is 
the  series  of  Calendars  of  State  Papers,  especially  those  on 
Ireland  and  the  Carew  MSS.  at  Lambeth,  with  the  pref- 
aces of  Mr.  Hans  Claude  Hamilton  and  the  late  Professor 
Brewer.  The  other  is  Mr.  E.  Arber's  series  of  reprints  of 
old  English  books,  and  his  Transcript  of  the  Stationers' 
Registers — a  work,  I  suppose,  without  parallel  in  its  in- 
formation about  the  early  literature  of  a  country,  and 
edited  by  him  with  admirable  care  and  public  spirit.  I 
wish  also  to  say  that  I  am  much  indebted  to  Mr.  Craik's 
excellent  little  book  on  Spenser  and  his  Poetry. 

March,  1879. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

PAGH 
.       .       .  1 


Spenser's  early  Life 

CHAPTER  II. 
The  new  Poet — The  Shepherd's  Calendar 


29 


CHAPTER  III. 
Spenser  in  Ireland 51 

CHAPTER  IV. 
The  Faerie  Queene— The  First  Part 80 

CHAPTER  V. 
The  Faerie  Queene 117 

CHAPTER  VI. 
Second   Part   of   the   Faerie    Queene  —  Spenser's 
last  Years  (1590-1599) I65 


SPENSER. 


CHAPTER  I. 

Spenser's  early  life. 

[1552-1 579.] 

Spenser  marks  a  beginning  in  English  literature.  He  was 
the  first  Englishman  who,  in  that  great  division  of  our 
history  which  dates  from  the  Reformation,  attempted  and 
achieved  a  poetical  work  of  the  highest  order.  Born  about 
the  same  time  as  Hooker  (1552-1554),  in  the  middle  of 
that  eventful  century  which  began  with  Henry  VIII,  and 
ended  with  Elizabeth,  he  was  the  earliest  of  our  great  mod- 
ern writers  in  poetry,  as  Hooker  was  the  earliest  of  the 
great  modern  writers  in  prose.  In  that  reviving  English 
literature,  which,  after  Chaucer's  wonderful  promise,  had 
been  arrested  in  its  progress,  first  by  the  Wars  of  the 
Roses,  and  then  by  the  religious  troubles  of  the  Reforma- 
tion, these  two  were  the  writers  who  first  realized  to  Eng- 
lishmen the  ideas  of  a  high  literary  perfection.  These 
ideas  vaguely  filled  many  minds;  but  no  one  had  yet 
shown  the  genius  and  the  strength  to  grasp  and  exhibit 
them  in  a  way  to  challenge  comparison  with  what  had 
been  accomplished  by  the  poetry  and  prose   of  Greece, 

1* 


2  SPENSER.  [chap. 

Eome,  and  Italy.  There  had  been  poets  in  England  since 
Chancer,  and  prose-writers  since  Wycliffe  had  translated 
the  Bible.  Surrey  and  Wyatt  had  deserved  to  live,  while 
a  crowd  of  poets,  as  ambitious  as  they,  and  not  incapable 
of  occasional  force  and  sweetness,  have  been  forgotten.  Sir 
Thomas  More,  Roger  Ascham,  Tyndale,  the  translator  of 
the  New  Testament,  Bishop  Latimer,  the  writers  of  many 
state  documents,  and  the  framers,  either  by  translation  or 
composition,  of  the  offices  of  the  English  Prayer -Book, 
showed  that  they  understood  the  power  of  the  English 
language  over  many  of  the  subtleties  and  difficulties  of 
thought,  and  were  alive  to  the  music  of  its  cadences. 
Some  of  these  works,  consecrated  by  the  highest  of  all 
possible  associations,  have  remained,  permanent  monuments 
and  standards  of  the  most  majestic  and  most  affecting 
English  speech.  But  the  verse  of  Surrey,  Wyatt,  and 
Sackville,  and  the  prose  of  More  and  Ascham,  were  but 
noble  and  promising  efforts.  Perhaps  the  language  was 
not  ripe  for  their  success;  perhaps  the  craftsmen's  strength 
and  experience  were  not  equal  to  the  novelty  of  their  at- 
tempt. But  no  one  can  compare  the  English  styles  of  the 
first  half  of  the  sixteenth  century  with  the  contemporary 
styles  of  Italy,  with  Ariosto,  Machiavelli,  Guicciardini,  with- 
out feeling  the  immense  gap  in  point  of  culture,  practice, 
and  skill — the  immense  distance  at  which  the  Italians  were 
ahead,  in  the  finish  and  reach  of  their  instruments,  in  their 
power  to  handle  them,  in  command  over  their  resources, 
and  facility  and  case  in  using  them.  The  Italians  were 
more  than  a  century  older ;  the  English  could  not  yet,  like 
the  Italians,  say  what  they  would  ;  the  strength  of  English 
was,  doubtless,  there  in  germ,  but  it  had  still  to  reach  its 
full  growth  and  development.  Even  the  French  prose  of 
Rabelais  and  Montaigne  was  more  mature.     But  in  Spen- 


i.]  SPENSER'S  EARLY  LIFE.  3 

ser,  as  in  Hooker,  all  these  tentative  essays  of  vigorous  but 
unpractised  minds  have  led  up  to  great  and  lasting  works. 
We  have  forgotten  all  these  preliminary  attempts,  crude 
and  imperfect,  to  speak  with  force  and  truth,  or  to  sing 
with  measure  and  grace.  There  is  no  reason  why  they 
should  be  remembered,  except  by  professed  inquirers  into 
the  antiquities  of  our  literature ;  they  were  usually  clumsy 
and  awkward,  sometimes  grotesque,  often  affected,  always 
hopelessly  wanting  in  the  finish,  breadth,  moderation,  and 
order  which  alone  can  give  permanence  to  writing.  They 
were  the  necessary  exercises  by  which  Englishmen  were 
recovering  the  suspended  art  of  Chaucer,  and  learning  to 
write ;  and  exercises,  though  indispensably  necessary,  are 
not  ordinarily  in  themselves  interesting  and  admirable. 
But  when  the  exercises  had  been  dulv  ffone  through,  then 
arose  the  original  and  powerful  minds,  to  take  full  advan- 
tage- of  what  had  been  gained  by  all  the  practising,  and  to 
concentrate  and  bring  to  a  focus  all  the  hints  and  lessons 
of  art  which  had  been  gradually  accumulating.  Then  the 
sustained  strength  and  richness  of  the  Faerie  Queene  be- 
came possible ;  contemporary  with  it,  the  grandeur  and 
force  of  English  prose  began  in  Hooker's  Ecclesiastical 
Polity ;  and  then,  in  the  splendid  Elizabethan  Drama, 
that  form  of  art  which  has  nowhere  a  rival,  the  highest 
powers  of  poetic  imagination  became  wedded,  as  they  had 
never  been  before  in  England  or  in  the  world,  to  the 
real  facts  of  human  life,  and  to  its  deepest  thoughts  and 
passions. 

More  is  known  about  the  circumstances  of  Spenser's  life 
than  about  the  lives  of  many  men  of  letters  of  that  time ; 
yet  our  knowledge  is  often  imperfect  and  inaccurate.  The 
year  1552  is  now  generally  accepted  as  the  year  of  his 
birth.     The  date  is  inferred  from  a  passage  in  one  of  his 


4  SPENSER.  [chap- 

Sonnets,1  and  this  probably  is  near  the  truth.  That  is  to 
say,  that  Spenser  was  born  in  one  of  the  last  two  years  of 
Edward  VI: ;  tbat  his  infancy  was  passed  during  the  dark 
days  of  Mary ;  and  that  he  was  about  six  years  old  when 
Elizabeth  came  to  the  throne.  About  the  same  time  were 
born  Ralegh,  and,  a  year  or  two  later  (1554),  Hooker  and 
Philip  Sidney.  Bacon  (1561),  and  Shakespere  (1564), 
belong  to  the  next  decade  of  the  century. 

He  was  certainly  a  Londoner  by  birth  and  early  train- 
ing. This  also  we  learn  from  himself,  in  the  latest  poem 
published  in  his  life-time.  It  is  a  bridal  ode  (Protkala- 
mion),  to  celebrate  the  marriage  of  two  daughters  of  the 
Earl  of  Worcester,  written  late  in  1596.  It  was  a  time  in 
his  life  of  disappointment  and  trouble,  when  he  was  only 
a  rare  visitor  to  London.  In  the  poem  he  imagines  him- 
self on  the  banks  of  London's  great  river,  and  the  bridal 
procession  arriving  at  Lord  Essex's  house ;  and  he  takes 
occasion  to  record  the  affection  with  which  he  still  re- 
garded "  the  most  kindly  nurse  "  of  his  boyhood. 

"  Calm  was  the  day,  and  through  the  trembling  air 
Sweet-breathing  Zephyrus  did  softly  play, 
A  gentle  spirit,  that  lightly  did  delay 
Hot  Titan's  beams,  which  then  did  glister  fair : 
When  I,  (whom  sullen  care, 
Through  discontent  of  my  long  fruitless  stay 
In  Princes  Court,  and  expectation  vain 
Of  idle  hopes,  which  still  do  fly  away, 
Like  empty  shadows,  did  afflict  my  brain,) 
Walkt  forth  to  ease  my  pain 

"  Since  the  winged  god  his  planet  clear 


Began  in  me  to  move,  one  year  is  spent : 
The  which  doth  longer  unto  me  appear 
Than  all  those  forty  which  my  life  outwent." 

Sonnet  EX.,  probably  written  in  1593  or  1594. 


,]  SPENSER'S  KABLYUB.&1A1  ^«, 

Los  Angeles,  Cal. 

Along  the  shore  of  silver-streaming  Thames ; 

Whose  rutty  bank,  the  which  his  river  hems, 

"Was  painted  all  with  variable  flowers, 

And  all  the  meads  adorned  with  dainty  gems 

Fit  to  deck  maidens'  bowers, 

And  crown  their  paramours 
Against  the  bridal  day,  which  is  not  long : 
Sweet  Thames  !  run  softly,  till  I  end  my  song. 

******* 

At  length  they  all  to  merry  London  came, 

To  merry  London,  my  most  kindly  nurse, 

That  to  me  gave  this  life 's  first  native  source, 

Though  from  another  place  I  take  my  name, 

A  house  of  ancient  fame. 

There,  when  they  came,  whereas  those  bricky  towers 

The  which  on  Thames  broad  aged  back  do  ride, 

"Where  now  the  studious  lawyers  have  their  bowers, 

There  whilome  wont  the  Templar  Knights  to  bide, 

Till  they  decayed  through  pride :     ■ 

Next  whereunto  there  stands  a  stately  place, 

Where  oft  I  gained  gifts  and  goodly  grace1 

Of  that  great  Lord,  which  therein  wont  to  dwell ; 

Whose  want  too  well  now  feels  my  friendless  case  ; 

But  ah!  here  fits  not  well 

Old  woes,  but  joys,  to  tell 
Against  the  bridal  day,  which  is  not  long : 
Sweet  Thames  !  run  softly,  till  I  end  my  song : 

Yet  therein  now  doth  lodge  a  noble  peer,2 

Great  England's  glory  and  the  wide  world's  wonder, 

Whose  dreadful  name  late  through  all  Spain  did  thunder, 

And  Hercules  two  pillars,  standing  near, 

Did  make  to  quake  and  fear. 

Fair  branch  of  honour,  flower  of  chivalry  ! 

That  fillest  England  with  thy  triumph's  fame, 

Joy  have  thou  of  thy  noble  victory,3 

1  Leicester  House,  then  Essex  House,  in  the  Strand. 

2  Earl  of  Essex.  3  At  Cadiz,  June  21, 159S. 


6  SPENSER.  [chap. 

And  endless  happiness  of  thine  own  name 

That  pi'omiseth  the  same. 

That  through  thy  prowess,  and  victorious  arms, 

Thy  country  may  be  freed  from  foreign  harms ; 

And  great  Elisa's  glorious  name  may  ring 

Through  all  the  world,  filled  with  thy  wide  alarms." 

Who  his  father  was,  and  what  was  his  employment,  we 
know  not.  From  one  of  the  poems  of  his  later  years  wc 
learn  that  his  mother  bore  the  famous  name  of  Elizabeth, 
which  was  also  the  cherished  one  of  Spenser's  wife. 

"  My  love,  my  life's  best  ornament, 
By  whom  my  spirit  out  of  dust  was  raised."1 

But  his  family,  whatever  was  his  father's  condition,  cer- 
tainly claimed  kindred,  though  there  was  a  difference  in  the 
spelling  of  the  name,  with  a  house  then  rising  into  fame 
and  importance,  the  Spencers  of  Althorpe,  the  ancestors  of 
the  Spencers  and  Churchills  of  modern  days.  Sir  John 
Spencer  had  several  daughters,  three  of  whom  made  great 
marriages.  Elizabeth  was  the  wife  of  Sir  George  Carey, 
afterwards  the  second  Lord  Ilunsdon,  the  son  of  Eliza- 
beth's cousin  and  Counsellor.  Anne,  first,  Lady  Compton, 
afterwards  married  Thomas  Sackvillc,  the  son  of  the  poet, 
Lord  Buckhurst,  and  then  Earl  of  Dorset.  Alice,  the 
youngest,  whose  first  husband,  Lord  Strange,  became  Earl 
of  Derby,  after  his  death  married  Thomas  Egerton,  Lord 
Keeper,  Baron  Ellesmcre,  and  then  Viscount  Brackley. 
These  three  sisters  are  celebrated  by  him  in  a  gallery  of 
the  noble  ladies  of  the  Court,2  under  poetical  names — 
"  Phyllis,  the  flower  of  rare  perfection  ;"  "  Charillis,  the 

1  Sonnet  LXX1V. 

s  Colin  Cloufs  come  Home  again,  1.  536.     Craik,  Spenser,  i.  9, 10. 


i.]  SPENSER'S  EARLY  LIFE.  1 

pride  and  primrose  of  the  rest ;"  and  "  Sweet  Amaryllis, 
the  youngest  but  the  highest  in  degree."  Alice,  Lady 
Strange,  Lady  Derby,  Lady  Ellesmere  and  Brackley,  and 
then  again  Dowager  Lady  Derby,  the  "  Sweet  Amaryllis" 
of  the  poet,  had  the  rare  fortune  to  be  a  personal  link  be- 
tween Spenser  and  Milton.  She  was  among  the  last  whom 
Spenser  honoured  with  his  homage :  and  she  was  the  first 
whom  Milton  honoured ;  for  he  composed  his  Arcades  to 
be  acted  before  her  by  her  grandchildren,  and  the  Masque 
of  Comus  for  her  son-in-law,  Lord  Bridgewater,  and  his 
daughter,  another  Lady  Alice.  "With  these  illustrious  sis- 
ters Spenser  claimed  kindred.  To  each  of  these  he  dedi- 
cated one  of  his  minor  poems ;  to  Lady  Strange,  the  Tears 
of  the  Muses  ;  to  Lady  Compton,  the  Apologue  of  the  Fox 
and  the  Ape,  Mother  Hubberd's  Tale  ;  to  Lady  Carey,  the 
Fable  of  the  Butterfly  and  the  Spider,  Muiopotmos.  And 
in  each  dedication  he  assumed  on  their  part  the  recogni- 
tion of  his  claim. 

"  The  sisters  three, 
The  honour  of  the  noble  family, 
Of  which  I  meanest  boast  myself  to  be." 

Whatever  his  degree  of  relationship  to  them,  he  could 
hardly,  even  in  the  days  of  his  fame,  have  ventured  thus 
publicly  to  challenge  it,  unless  there  had  been  some  ac- 
knowledged ground  for  it.  There  are  obscure  indications, 
which  antiquarian  diligence  may  perhaps  make  clear,  which 
point  to  East  Lancashire  as  the  home  of  the  particular 
family  of  Spensers  to  which  Edmund  Spenser's  father  be- 
longed. Probably  he  was,  however,  in  humble  circum- 
stances. 

Edmund  Spenser  was  a  Londoner  by  education  as  well 
as  birth.     A  recent  discovery  by  Mr.  R.  B.  Knowles,  fur- 


8  SPENSER.  [chap. 

ther  illustrated  by  Dr.  Grosart,1  has  made  us  acquainted 
with  Spenser's  school.  He  was  a  pupil,  probably  one  of 
the  earliest  ones,  of  the  grammar  school,  then  recently 
(1560)  established  by  the  Merchant  Taylors'  Company,  un- 
der a  famous  teacher,  Dr.  Mulcaster.  Among  the  manu- 
scripts at  Townley  Hall  are  preserved  the  account  books  of 
the  executors  of  a  bountiful  London  citizen,  Robert  Now- 
ell,  the  brother  of  Dr.  Alexander  Nowell,  who  was  Dean 
of  St.  Paul's  during  Elizabeth's  reign,  and  was  a  leading 
person  in  the  ecclesiastical  affairs  of  the  time.  In  these 
books,  in  a  crowd  of  unknown  names  of  needy  relations 
and  dependents,  distressed  foreigners,  and  parish  paupers, 
who  shared  from  time  to  time  the  liberality  of  Mr.  Robert 
Nowell's  representatives,  there  appear  among  the  numer- 
ous "poor  scholars"  whom  his  wealth  assisted,  the  names 
of  Richard  Hooker  and  Lancelot  Andrewes.  And  there, 
also,  in  the  roll  of  the  expenditure  at  Mr.  Nowell's  pompous 
funeral  at  St.  Paul's  in  February,  156f,  among  long  lists  of 
unknown  men  and  women,  high  and  low,  who  had  mourn- 
ing given  them,  among  bills  for  fees  to  officials,  for  under- 
takers' charges,  for  heraldic  pageantry  and  ornamentation, 
for  abundant  supplies  for  the  sumptuous  funeral  banquet, 
are  put  down  lists  of  boys,  from  the  chief  London  schools, 
St.  Paul's,  Westminster,  and  others,  to  whom  two  yards  of 
cloth  were  to  be  given  to  make  their  gowns :  and  at  the 
head  of  the  six  scholars  named  from  Merchant  Taylors'  is 
the  name  of  Edmund  Spenser. 

He  was  then,  probably,  the  senior  boy  of  the  school, 
and  in  the  following  May  he  went  to  Cambridge.  The 
Nowells  still  helped  him  :  we  read  in  their  account  books 

1  See  The  Spending  of  the  Money  of  Robert  KowcU,  15G8-1580: 
from  the  MSS.  at  Townley  Hall.      Edited  by  Rev.  A.  B.  Grosart. 

1877. 


i]  SPENSER'S  EARLY  LIEE.  9 

under  April  28,  1569,  "to  Edmond  Spensorc,  scholler  of 
the  rn'chante  tayler  sclioll,  at  his  gowingo  to  penbrocke 
hall  in  chambridge,  xs."  On  the  20th  of  May,  he  was  ad- 
mitted sizar,  or  serving  clerk  at  Pembroke  Hall ;  and  on 
more  than  one  occasion  afterwards,  like  Hooker  and  like 
Lancelot  Andrewes,  also  a  Merchant  Taylors'  boy,  two  or 
three  years  Spenser's  junior,  and  a  member  of  the  same 
college,  Spenser  had  a  share  in  the  benefactions,  small  in 
themselves,  but  very  numerous,  with  which  the  Nowells, 
after  the  fine  fashion  of  the  time,  were  accustomed  to  as- 
sist poor  scholars  at  the  Universities.  In  the  visitations 
of  Merchant  Taylors'  School,  at  which  Grindal,  Bishop  of 
London,  was  frequently  present,1  it  is  not  unlikely  that  his 
interest  was  attracted,  in  the  appositions  or  examinations, 
to  the  promising  senior  boy  of  the  school.  At  any  rate, 
Spenser,  Avho  afterwards  celebrated  Grindal's  qualities  as  a 
bishop,  was  admitted  to  a  place,  one  which  befitted  a  schol- 
ar in  humble  circumstances,  in  Grindal's  old  college.  It 
is  perhaps  worth  noticing  that  all  Spenser's  early  friends, 
Grindal,  the  Nowells,  Dr.  Mulcaster,  his  master,  were  north 
country  men. 

Spenser  was  sixteen  or  seventeen  when  he  left  school  for 
the  university,  and  he  entered  Cambridge  at  the  time  when 
the  struggle  which  was  to  occupy  the  reign  of  Elizabeth 
was  just  opening.  At  the  end  of  the  year  1569,  the  first 
distinct  blow  was  struck  against  the  queen  and  the  new 
settlement  of  religion,  by  the  Rising  of  the  North.  In  the 
first  ten  years  of  Elizabeth's  reign,  Spenser's  school-time 
at  Merchant  Taylors',  the  great  quarrel  had  slumbered. 
Events  abroad  occupied  men's  minds ;  the  religious  wars 
in  France,  the  death  of  the  Duke  of  Guise  (1563),  the  loss 

1  II.  B.  Wilson,  Hist,  of  Merchant  Taylors'  School,  p.  23. 


10  SPENSER.  [chap. 

of  Havre,  and  expulsion  of  the  English  garrisons,  the  close 
of  the  Council  of  Trent  (1563),  the  French  peace,  the  ac- 
cession of  Pius  V.  (1564).  Nearer  home,  there  was  the 
marriage  of  Mary  of  Scotland  with  Henry  Darnley  (1565), 
and  all  the  tragedy  which  followed,  Kirk  of  Field  (1567), 
Lochleven,  Langside,  Carlisle,  the  imprisonment  of  the  pre- 
tender to  the  English  Crown  (1568).  In  England,  the 
authority  of  Elizabeth  had  established  itself,  and  the  in- 
ternal organization  of  the  Reformed  Church  was  going  on, 
in  an  uncertain  and  tentative  way,  but  steadily.  There 
was  a  struggle  between  Genevan  exiles,  who  were  for  go- 
ing too  fast,  and  bishops  and  politicians,  who  were  for  go- 
ing too  slow ;  between  authority  and  individual  judgment, 
between  home-born  state  traditions  and  foreign  revolution- 
ary zeal.  But  outwardly,  at  least,  England  had  been  peace- 
ful. Now,  however,  a  great  change  was  at  hand.  In  1566, 
the  Dominican  Inquisitor,  Michael  Ghislieri,  was  elected 
Pope,  under  the  title  of  Pius  V. 

In  Pius  (1566-72)  were  embodied  the  new  spirit  and 
policy  of  the  Roman  Church,  as  they  had  been  created 
and  moulded  by  the  great  Jesuit  order,  and  by  reforming 
bishops  like  Ghiberti  of  Verona,  and  Carlo  Borromco  of 
Milan.  Devout  and  self-denying  as  a  saint,  fierce  and  in- 
flexible against  abuses  as  a  puritan,  resolute  and  uncom- 
promising as  a  Jacobin  idealist  or  an  Asiatic  despot,  ruth- 
less and  inexorable  as  an  executioner,  his  soul  was  bent  on 
re-establishing,  not  only  by  preaching  and  martyrdom,  but 
by  the  sword  and  by  the  stake,  the  unity  of  Christendom 
and  of  its  belief.  Eastwards  and  westwards,  he  beheld 
two  formidable  foes  and  two  serious  dangers ;  and  he  saw 
before  him  the  task  of  his  life  in  the  heroic  work  of  crush- 
ing English  heresy  and  beating  back  Turkish  misbelief. 
Hi'  broke  through  the  temporizing  caution  of  his  produces- 


i]  SPENSER'S  EARLY  LIFE.  11 

sors  by  the  Bull  of  Deposition  against  Elizabeth  in  1570. 
He  was  the  soul  of  the  confederacy  which  won  the  day  of 
Lepanto  against  the  Ottomans  in  1571.  And  though  dead, 
his  spirit  was  paramount  in  the  slaughter  of  St.  Bartholo- 
mew in  1572. 

In  the  year  1569,  while  Spenser  was  passing  from  school 
to  college,  his  emissaries  were  already  in  England,  spread- 
ing abroad  that  Elizabeth  was  a  bastard  and  an  apostate, 
incapable  of  filling  a  Christian  throne,  which  belonged  by 
right  to  the  captive  Mary.  The  seed  they  sowed  bore 
fruit.  In  the  end  of  the  year,  southern  England  was 
alarmed  by  the  news  of  the  rebellion  of  the  two  great 
Earls  in  the  north,  Percy  of  Northumberland  and  Neville 
of  Westmoreland.  Durham  was  sacked,  and  the  mass 
restored  by  an  insurgent  host,  before  which  an  "  aged  gen- 
tleman," Richard  Norton  with  his  sons,  bore  the  banner  of 
the  Five  Wounds  of  Christ.  The  rebellion  was  easily  put 
down,  and  the  revenge  was  stern.  To  the  men  who  had 
risen  at  the  instigation  of  the  Pope  and  in  the  cause  of 
Mary,  Elizabeth  gave,  as  she  had  sworn,  "  such  a  breakfast 
as  never  was  in  the  North  before."  The  hangman  finish- 
ed the  work  on  those  who  had  escaped  the  sword.  Poetry, 
early  and  late,  has  recorded  the  dreary  fate  of  those  brave 
victims  of  a  mistaken  cause,  in  the  ballad  of  the  Rising  of 
the  North,  and  in  the  White  Doe  of  Rylstone.  It  was  the 
signal  given  for  the  internecine  war  which  was  to  follow 
between  Rome  and  Elizabeth.  And  it  was  the  first  great 
public  event  which  Spenser  would  hear  of  in  all  men's 
mouths,  as  he  entered  on  manhood,  the  prelude  and  au- 
gury of  fierce  and  dangerous  years  to  come.  The  nation 
awoke  to  the  certainty — one  which  so  profoundly  affects 
sentiment  and  character  both  in  a  nation  and  in  an  in- 
dividual— that  among  the  habitual  and  fixed  conditions  of 


12  SPENSER.  [chap. 

life  is  that  of  having  a  serious  and  implacable  enemy  ever 
to  reckon  with. 

And  in  this  year,  apparently  in  the  transition-time  be- 
tween school  and  college,  Spenser's  literary  ventures  began. 
The  evidence  is  curious,  but  it  seems  to  be  clear.  In  1569, 
a  refugee  Flemish  physician  from  Antwerp,  who  had  fled 
to  England  from  the  "  abominations  of  the  Roman  Anti- 
christ "  and  the  persecutions  of  the  Duke  of  Alva,  John 
Vander  Noodt,  published  one  of  those  odd  miscellanies, 
fashionable  at  the  time,  half  moral  and  poetical,  half 
fiercely  polemical,  which  he  called  a  "  Theatre,  wherein  be 
represented  as  well  the  Miseries  and  Calamities  which  fol- 
low the  voluptuous  Worldlings,  as  also  the  great  Joys  and 
Pleasures  which  the  Faithful  do  enjoy — an  argument  both 
profitable  and  delectable  to  all  that  sincerely  love  the  word 
of  God."  This  "  little  treatise "  was  a  mixture  of  verse 
and  prose,  setting  forth,  in  general,  the  vanity  of  the  world, 
and,  in  particular,  predictions  of  the  ruin  of  Rome  and 
Antichrist :  and  it  enforced  its  lessons  by  illustrative  wood- 
cuts. In  this  strange  jumble  are  preserved,  we  can  scarce- 
ly doubt,  the  first  compositions  which  we  know  of  Spen- 
ser's. Among  the  pieces  are  some  Sonnets  of  Petrarch, 
and  some  Visions  of  the  French  poet  Joachim  du  Bellay, 
whose  poems  were  published  in  1568.  In  the  collection 
itself,  these  pieces  are  said  by  the  compiler  to  have  been 
translated  by  him  "  out  of  the  Brabants  speech,"  and  "  out 
of  Dutch  into  English."  But  in  a  volume  of  "  poems  of 
the  world's  vanity,"  and  published  years  afterwards  in  1591, 
ascribed  to  Spenser,  and  put  together,  apparently  with  his 
consent,  by  his  publisher,  are  found  these  very  pieces  from 
Petrarch  and  Du  Bellay.  The  translations  from  Petrarch 
arc  almost  literally  the  same,  and  are  said  to  have  been 
"  formerly  translated."     In  the  Visions  of  Du  Bellay  there 


I.]  SrENSER'S  EARLY  LIFK  13 

is  this  difference,  that  the  earlier  translations  are  in  blank 
verse,  and  the  later  ones  are  rimed  as  sonnets ;  but  the 
change  does  not  destroy  the  manifest  identity  of  the  two 
translations.  So  that  unless  Spenser's  publisher,  to  whom 
the  poet  had  certainly  given  some  of  his  genuine  pieces  for 
the  volume,  is  not  to  be  trusted — which,  of  course,  is  pos- 
sible, but  not  probable — or  unless — what  is  in  the  last 
degree  inconceivable — Spenser  had  afterwards  been  will- 
ing to  take  the  trouble  of  turning  the  blank  verse  of  Du 
Bellay's  unknown  translator  into  rime,  the  Dutchman  who 
dates  his  Theatre  of  Worldlings  on  the  25th  May,  1569, 
must  have  employed  the  promising  and  fluent  school-boy, 
to  furnish  him  with  an  English  versified  form,  of  which 
he  himself  took  the  credit,  for  compositions  which  he  pro- 
fesses to  have  known,  only  in  the  Brabants  or  Dutch  trans- 
lations. The  sonnets  from  Petrarch  are  translated  with 
much  command  of  language ;  there  occurs  in  them,  what 
was  afterwards  a  favourite  thought  of  Spenser's : 

— "  The  Nymphs, 
That  sweetly  in  accord  did  tune  their  voice 
To  the  soft  sounding  of  the  waters'  falV1 

It  is  scarcely  credible  that  the  translator  of  the  sonnets 
could  have  caught  so  much  as  he  has  done  of  the  spirit 
of  Petrarch  without  having  been  able  to  read  the  Italian 
original ;  and  if  Spenser  was  the  translator,  it  is  a  curious 
illustration  of  the  fashionableness  of  Italian  literature  in 
the  days  of  Elizabeth,  that  a  school-boy  just  leaving  Mer- 
chant Taylors'  should  have  been  so  much  interested  in  it. 
Dr.  Mulcaster,  his  master,  is  said  by  Warton  to  have  given 
special  attention  to  the  teaching  of  the  English  language. 

1  Comp.  Sheph.  Cat,  April  1.  36.  June  1.  8.    F.  Q.  6.  10.  1. 


14  SPENSER.  [chap. 

If  these  translations  were  Spenser's,  he  must  have  gone 
to  Cambridge  with  a  faculty  of  verse,  which  for  his  time 
may  be  compared  to  that  with  which  winners  of  prize 
poems  go  to  the  universities  now.  But  there  was  this 
difference,  that  the  school-boy  versifiers  of  our  days  are 
rich  with  the  accumulated  experience  and  practice  of  the 
most  varied  and  magnificent  poetical  literature  in  the 
world ;  while  Spenser  had  but  one  really  great  English 
model  behind  him ;  and  Chaucer,  honoured  as  he  was,  had 
become  in  Elizabeth's  time,  if  not  obsolete,  yet  in  his  dic- 
tion, very  far  removed  from  the  living  language  of  the 
day.  Even  Milton,  in  his  boyish  compositions,  wrote  af- 
ter Spenser  and  Shakespere,  with  their  contemporaries, 
had  created  modern  English  poetry.  Whatever  there  was 
in  Spenser's  early  verses  of  grace  and  music  was  of  his 
own  finding :  no  one  of  his  own  time,  except  in  occasional 
and  fitful  snatches,  like  stanzas  of  Sackville's,  had  shown 
him  the  way.  Thus  equipped,  he  entered  the  student 
world,  then  full  of  pedantic  and  ill-applied  learning,  of  the 
disputations  of  Calvinistic  theology,  and  of  the  beginnings 
of  those  highly  speculative  puritanical  controversies,  which 
were  the  echo  at  the  University  of  the  great  political 
struggles  of  the  day,  and  were  soon  to  become  so  seriously 
practical.  The  University  was  represented  to  the  author- 
ities in  London  as  being  in  a  state  of  dangerous  excite- 
ment, troublesome  and  mutinous.  Whitgift,  afterwards 
Elizabeth's  favourite  archbishop,  Master,  first  of  Pembroke, 
and  then  of  Trinity,  was  Vice-Chancellor  of  the  Universi- 
ty ;  but,  as  the  guardian  of  established  order,  he  found  it 
difficult  to  keep  in  check  the  violent  and  revolutionary 
spirit  of  the  theological  schools.  .Calvin  was  beginning  to 
be  set  up  there  as  the  infallible  doctor  of  Protestant  the- 
ology.    Cartwright  from  the  Margaret  Professor's  chair 


I.]  SrENSER'S  EARLY  LIFE.  15 

was  teaching  the  exclusive  and  divine  claims  of  the  Geneva 
platform  of  discipline,  and  in  defiance  of  the  bishops  and 
the  government  was  denouncing  the  received  Church  pol- 
ity and  ritual  as  Topish  and  anti-Christian.  Cartwright, 
an  extreme  and  uncompromising  man,  was  deprived  in 
1570  ;  but  the  course  which  things  were  taking  under  the 
influence  of  Rome  and  Spain  gave  force  to  his  lessons  and 
warnings,  and  strengthened  his  party.  In  this  turmoil  of 
opinions,  amid  these  hard  and  technical  debates,  these 
fierce  conflicts  between,  the  highest  authorities,  and  this 
unsparing  violence  and  bitterness  of  party  recriminations, 
Spenser,  with  the  tastes  and  faculties  of  a  poet,  and  the 
love  not  only  of  what  was  beautiful,  but  of  what  was  med- 
itative and  dreamy,  began  his  university  life. 

It  was  not  a  favourable  atmosphere  for  the  nurture  of  a 
great  poet.  But  it  suited  one  side  of  Spenser's  mind,  as 
it  suited  that  of  all  but  the  most  independent  Englishmen 
of  the  time — Shakespere,  Bacon,  Ralegh.  Little  is  known 
of  Spenser's  Cambridge  career.  It  is  probable,  from  the 
persons  with  whom  he  was  connected,  that  he  would  not 
be  indifferent  to  the  debates  around  him,  and  that  his  re- 
ligious prepossessions  were  then,  as  afterwards,  in  favour 
of  the  conforming  puritanism  in  the  Church,  as  opposed  to 
the  extreme  and  thorough-going  puritanism  of  Cartwright. 
Of  the  conforming  puritans,  who  would  have  been  glad  of 
a  greater  approximation  to  the  Swiss  model,  but  who, 
whatever  their  private  wishes  or  dislikes,  thought  it  best, 
for  good  reasons  or  bad,  to  submit  to  the  strong  deter- 
mination of  the  government  against  it,  and  to  accept  what 
the  government  approved  and  imposed,  Grindal,  who  held 
successively  the  great  sees  of  London,  York,  and  Canter- 
bury, and  Nowell,  Dean  of  St.  Paul's,  Spenser's  benefactor, 
were  representative  types.     Grindal,  a  waverer  like  many 


16  SPENSER.  [chap. 

others  in  opinion,  had  also  a  noble  and  manly  side  to  his 
character,  in  his  hatred  of  practical   abuses,  and  in  the 
courageous  and  obstinate  resistance  which  he  could  offer 
to  power,  when  his  sense  of  right  was  outraged.     Grin- 
dal,  as  has  been  said,  was  perhaps  instrumental  in  getting 
Spenser  into  his  own  old  college,  Pembroke  Hall,  with  the 
intention,  it  may  be,  as  was  the  fashion  of  bishops  of  that 
time,  of  becoming  his  patron.     But  certainly  after  his  dis- 
grace in  1577,  and  when  it  was  not  quite  safe  to  praise  a 
great  man  under  the  displeasure  of  the  Court,  Grindal  is 
the  person  whom  Spenser  first  singled  out  for  his  warmest 
and  heartiest  praise.     He  is  introduced  under  a  thin  dis- 
guise, "Algrind,"  in  Spenser's  earliest  work  after  he  left 
Cambridge,  the  Shepherd's  Calendar,  as  the  pattern  of  the 
true  and  faithful   Christian   pastor.     And   if   Pembroke 
Hall  retained  at  all  the  tone  and  tendencies  of  such  mas- 
ters as  Ridley,  Grindal,  and  Whitgift,  the  school  in  which 
Spenser  grew  up  was  one  of  their  mitigated  puritanism. 
But  his  puritanism  was  political  and  national,  rather  than 
religious.     He  went  heartily  with  the  puritan  party  in 
their  intense  hatred  of  Rome  and  Roman  partisans ;  he 
went  with  them  also  in  their  denunciations  of  the  scandals 
and  abuses  of  the  ecclesiastical  government  at  home.     But 
in  temper  of  mind  and  intellectual  bias  he  had  little  in 
common  with  the  puritans.     For  the  stern  austerities  of 
Calvinism,  its  fierce  and  eager  scholasticism,  its  isolation 
from  human  history,  human  enjoyment,  and  all  the  mani- 
fold play  and  variety  of  human  character,  there  could  not 
be  much  sympathy  in  a  man  like  Spenser,  with  his  easy 
and  flexible  nature,  keenly  alive  to  all  beauty,  an  admirer 
even  when  he  was  not  a  lover  of  the  alluring  pleasures  of 
which  the  world  is  full,  with  a  perpetual  struggle  going 
on  in   him,  between  his  strong  instincts  of  purity  and 


i.]  SPENSER'S  EARLY  LIFE.  17 

right,  and  his  passionate  appreciation  of  every  charm  and 
grace.  He  shows  no  signs  of  agreement  with  the  internal 
characteristics  of  the  puritans,  their  distinguishing  theolo- 
gy, their  peculiarities  of  thought  and  habits,  their  protests, 
right  or  wrong,  against  the  fashions  and  amusements  of  the 
world.  If  not  a  man  of  pleasure,  he  yet  threw  himself 
without  scruple  into  the  tastes,  the  language,  the  pursuits, 
of  the  gay  and  gallant  society  in  which  they  saw  so  much 
evil :  and  from  their  narrow  view  of  life,  and  the  contempt, 
dislike,  and  fear  with  which  they  regarded  the  whole  field 
of  human  interest,  he  certainly  was  parted  by  the  widest 
gulf.  Indeed,  he  had  not  the  sternness  and  concentration 
of  purpose,  which  made  Milton  the  great  puritan  poet. 

Spenser  took  his  Master's  degree  in  1576,  and  then  left 
Cambridge.  He  gained  no  Fellowship,  and  there  is  noth- 
ing to  show  how  he  employed  himself.  His  classical  learn- 
ing, whether  acquired  there  or  elsewhere,  was  copious,  but 
curiously  inaccurate ;  and  the  only  specimen  remaining  of 
his  Latin  composition  in  verse  is  contemptible  in  its  me- 
diaeval clumsiness.  We  know  nothing  of  his  Cambridge 
life  except  the  friendships  which  he  formed  there.  An 
intimacy  began  at  Cambridge  of  the  closest  and  most  af- 
fectionate kind,  which  lasted  long  into  after-life,  between 
him  and  two  men  of  his  college,  one  older  in  standing  than 
himself,  the  other  younger ;  Gabriel  Harvey,  first  a  fellow 
of  Pembroke,  and  then  a  student  or  teacher  of  civil  law  at 
Trinity  Hall,  and  Edward  Kirke,  like  Spenser,  a  sizar  at 
Pembroke,  recently  identified  with  the  E.  K.  who  was.  the 
editor  and  commentator  of  Spenser's  earliest  work,  the 
anonymous  Shepherd's  Calendar.  Of  the  younger  friend 
this  is  the  most  that  is  known.  That  he  was  deeply  in 
Spenser's  confidence  as  a  literary  coadjutor,  and  possibly 
in  other  ways,  is  shown  in  the  work  which  he  did.     But 

2 


18  SPENSER.  [chap. 

Gabriel  Harvey  was  a  man  who  had  influence  on  Spenser's 
ideas  and  purposes,  and  on  the  direction  of  his  efforts.  He 
was  a  classical  scholar  of  much  distinction  in  his  day,  well 
read  in  the  Italian  authors  then  so  fashionable,  and  regard- 
ed as  a  high  authority  on  questions  of  criticism  and  taste. 
Except  to  students  of  Elizabethan  literary  history,  he  has 
become  an  utterly  obscure  personage ;  and  he  has  not  usu- 
ally been  spoken  of  with  much  respect.  He  had  the  mis- 
fortune, later  in  life,  to  plunge  violently  into  the  scurrilous 
quarrels  of  the  day,  and  as  he  was  matched  with  wittier 
and  more  popular  antagonists,  he  has  come  down  to  us  as 
a  foolish  pretender,  or  at  least  as  a  dull  and  stupid  scholar 
who  knew  little  of  the  real  value  of  the  books  he  was  al- 
ways ready  to  quote,  like  the  pedant  of  the  comedies,  or 
Shakespere's  schoolmaster  Holofernes.  Further,  he  was  one 
who,  with  his  classical  learning,  had  little  belief  in  the  re- 
sources of  his  mother-tongue,  and  he  was  one  of  the  ear- 
liest and  most  confident  supporters  of  a  plan  then  fash- 
ionable, for  reforming  English  verse,  by  casting  away  its 
natural  habits  and  rhythms,  and  imposing  on  it  the  laws 
of  the  classical  metres.  In  this  he  was  not  singular.  The 
professed  treatises  of  this  time  on  poetry,  of  which  there 
were  several,  assume  the  same  theory,  as  the  mode  of  "  re- 
forming "  and  dulv  elevating  English  verse.  It  was  ea^er- 
ly  accepted  by  Philip  Sidney  and  his  Areopagus  of  wits  at 
court,  who  busied  themselves  in  devising  rules  of  their  own 
— improvements  as  they  thought  on  those  of  the  universi- 
ty men — for  English  hexameters  and  sapphics,  or,  as  they 
called  it,  artificial  versifying.  They  regarded  the  compar- 
ative value  of  the  native  English  rhythms  and  the  classical 
metres,  much  as  our  ancestors  of  Addison's  day  regarded 
the  comparison  between  Gothic  and  Palladian  architecture. 
One,  even  if  it  sometimes  had  a  certain  romantic  interest, 


i.]  SPENSER'S  EARLY  LIFE.  19 

was  rude  and  coarse  ;  the  other  was  the  perfection  of  po- 
lite art  and  good  taste.  Certainly  in  what  remains  of  Ga- 
briel Harvey's  writing,  there  is  much  that  seems  to  us  vain 
and  ridiculous  enough  ;  and  it  has  been  naturally  surmised 
that  he  must  have  been  a  dangerous  friend  and  counsellor 
to  Spenser.  But  probably  we  are  hard  upon  him.  His 
writings,  after  all,  are  not  much  more  affected  and  absurd 
in  their  outward  fashion  than  most  of  the  literary  compo- 
sition of  the  time ;  his  verses  are  no  worse  than  those  of 
most  of  his  neighbours  ;  he  was  not  above,  but  he  was  not 
below,  the  false  taste  and  clumsiness  of  his  age ;  and  the 
rage  for  "artificial  versifying"  was  for  the  moment  in  the 
air.  And  it  must  be  said,  that  though  his  enthusiasm  for 
English  hexameters  is  of  a  piece  with  the  puritan  use  of 
Scripture  texts  in  divinity  and  morals,  yet  there  is  no  want 
of  hard-headed  shrewdness  in  his  remarks ;  indeed,  in  his 
rules  for  the  adaptation  of  English  words  and  accents  to 
classical  metres,  he  shows  clearness  and  good  sense  in  ap- 
prehending the  conditions  of  the  problem,  while  Sidney 
and  Spenser  still  appear  confused  and  uncertain.  But  in 
spite  of  his  pedantry,  and  though  he  had  not,  as  we  shall 
see,  the  eye  to  discern  at  first  the  genius  of  the  Faerie 
Queene,  he  has  to  us  the  interest  of  having  been  Spenser's 
first,  and  as  far  as  we  can  see,  to  the  last,  dearest  friend. 
By  both  of  his  younger  fellow-students  at  Cambridge  he 
was  looked  up  to  with  the  'deepest  reverence  and  the  most 
confiding  affection.  Their  language  is  extravagant,  but 
there  is  no  reason  to  think  that  it  was  not  genuine.  E. 
Kirke,  the  editor  of  Spenser's  first  venture,  the  Shepherd's 
Calendar,  commends  the  "  new  poet "  to  his  patronage, 
and  to  the  protection  of  his  "  mighty  rhetoric,"  and  ex- 
horts Harvey  himself  to  seize  the  poetical  "  garland  which 
to  him  alone  is  due."     Spenser  speaks  in  the  same  terms : 


20  SPENSER.  [chap. 

"  veruntamen  te  sequor  solum ;  nunquam  vero  assequar." 
Portions  of  the  early  correspondence  between  Harvey  and 
Spenser  Lave  been  preserved  to  us,  possibly  by  Gabriel 
Harvey's  self  -  satisfaction  in  regard  to  bis  own  composi- 
tions. But  witb  the  pedagogue's  jocoseness,  and  a  play- 
fulness which  is  like  that  of  an  elephant,  it  shows  on  both 
sides  easy  frankness,  sincerity,  and  warmth,  and  not  a  lit- 
tle of  the  early  character  of  the  younger  man.  In  Spen- 
ser's earliest  poetry,  his  pastorals,  Harvey  appears  among 
the  imaginary  rustics,  as  the  poet's  "  special  and  most  fa- 
miliar friend,"  under  the  name  of  Hobbinol— * 

"  Good  Hobbinol,  that  was  so  true." 

To  him  Spenser  addresses  his  confidences,  under  the 
name  of  Colin  Clout,  a  name  borrowed  from  Skelton,  a 
satirical  poet  of  Henry  VIII.'s  time,  which  Spenser  kept 
throughout  his  poetical  career.  Harvey  reappears  in  one 
of  Spenser's  latest  writings,  a  return  to  the  early  pastoral, 
Colin  Clout's  come  home  again,  a  picture  drawn  in  distant 
Ireland,  of  the  brilliant  but  disappointing  court  of  Eliza- 
beth. And  from  Ireland,  in  1586,  was  addressed  to  Har- 
vey by  his  "  devoted  friend  during  life,"  the  following  fine 
sonnet,  which,  whatever  may  have  been  the  merit  of  Har- 
vey's criticisms  and  his  literary  quarrels  with  Greene  and 
Nash,  shows  at  least  Spenser's  unabated  honour  for  him. 

"  To  tiie  Right  Worshipful,  my  singular  good  Friend,  M.  Gabriel 
Harvey,  Doctor  of  the  Laws. 

"  Harvey,  the  happy  above  happiest  men 
I  read  ;  that,  Bitting  like  a  looker  on 
Of  this  world's  stage,  dost  note  with  critic  pen 
The  sharp  dislikes  of  each  condition  ; 
And,  as  one  careless  of  suspicion, 
Nc  fawnest  for  the  favour  of  the  great ; 


i. J  SPENSER'S  EARLY  LIFE.  21 

Ne  fearest  foolish  reprehension 
Of  faulty  men,  which  danger  to  thee  threat ; 
But  freely  dost,  of  what  thee  list,  entreat, 
Like  a  great  lord  of  peerless  liberty ; 
Lifting  the  good  up  to  high  honour's  seat, 
And  the  evil  damning  ever  more  to  die; 
For  life  and  death  is  in  thy  doomful  writing ; 
So  thy  renown  lives  ever  by  enditing. 
"  Dublin,  this  xviii.  of  July,  1586.     Your  devoted  friend,  during  life, 

"Edmund  Spenser." 

Between  Cambridge  and  Spenser's  appearance  in  Lon- 
don, there  is  a  short  but  obscure  interval.  What  is  cer- 
tain is,  that  he  spent  part  of  it  in  the  North  of  England; 
that  he  was  busy  with  various  poetical  works,  one  of  which 
was  soon  to  make  him  known  as  a  new  star  in  the  poetical 
heaven ;  and  lastly,  that  in  the  effect  on  him  of  a  deep  but 
unrequited  passion,  he  then  received  what  seems  to  have 
been  a  strong  and  determining  influence  on  his  character 
and  life.  -It  seems  likely  that  his  sojourn  in  the  north, 
which  perhaps  first  introduced  the  London-bred  scholar, 
the  "  Southern  Shepherd's  Boy,"  to  the  novel  and  rougher 
country  life  of  distant  Lancashire,  also  gave  form  and  lo- 
cal character  to  his  first  considerable  work.  But  we  do 
not  know  for  certain  where  his  abode  was  in  the  north  ;  of 
his  literary  activity,  which  must  have  been  considerable, 
we  only  partially  know  the  fruit ;  and  of  the  lady  whom 
he  made  so  famous,  that  her  name  became  a  consecrated 
word  in  the  poetry  of  the  time,  of  Rosalind,  the  "  Widow's 
Daughter  of  the  Glen,"  whose  refusal  of  his  suit,  and  pref- 
erence for  another,  he  lamented  so  bitterly,  yet  would  al- 
low no  one  else  to  blame,  we  know  absolutely  nothing. 
She  would  not  be  his  wife;  but  apparently,  he  never 
ceased  to  love  her  through  all  the  chances  and  tempta- 
tions, and  possibly  errors  of  his  life,  even  apparently  in 


22  SPENSER.  [chap. 

the  midst  of  his  passionate  admiration  of  the  lady  whom, 
long  afterwards,  he  did  marry.  To  her  kindred  and  con- 
dition, various  clues  have  been  suggested,  only  to  provoke 
and  disappoint  us.  Whatever  her  condition,  she  was  able 
to  measure  Spenser's  powers :  Gabriel  Harvey  has  pre- 
served one  of  her  compliments — "Gentle  Mistress  Rosa- 
lind once  reported  him  to  have  all  the  intelligences  at 
commandment ;  and  at  another,  christened  him  her  Sign- 
ior  Pegaso."  But  the  unknown  Rosalind  had  given  an 
impulse  to  the  young  poet's  powers,  and  a  colour  to  his 
thoughts,  and  had  enrolled  Spenser  in  that  band  and  order 
of  poets — with  one  exception,  not  the  greatest  order — to 
whom  the  wonderful  passion  of  love,  in  its  heights  and 
its  depths,  is  the  element  on  which  their  imagination 
works,  and  out  of  which  it  moulds  its  most  beautiful  and 
characteristic  creations. 

But  in  October,  1579,  he  emerges  from  obscurity.  If 
we  may  trust  the  correspondence  between  Gabriel  Harvey 
and  Spenser,  which  was  published  at  the  time,  Spenser 
was  then  in  London.1  It  was  the  time  of  the  crisis  of  the 
Alencon  courtship,  while  the  queen  was  playing  fast  and 
loose  with  her  Valois  lover,  whom  she  playfully  called  her 
frog  ;  when  all  about  her,  Burghley,  Leicester,  Sidney,  and 
Walsingham,  were  dismayed,  both  at  the  plan  itself,  and  at 
her  vacillations;  and  just  when  the  Puritan  pamphleteer, 
who  had  given  expression  to  the  popular  disgust  at  a 
French  marriage,  especially  at  a  connexion  with  the  family 
which  had  on  its  hands  the  blood  of  St.  Bartholomew,  was 
sentenced  to  lose  his  right  hand  as  a  seditious  libeller. 

1  Published  in  June,  1580.  Reprinted  incompletely  in  Hasle- 
wood,  Aiicient  Critical  Unsays  (1815),  ii.  255.  Extracts  given  in  edi- 
tions of  Spenser  by  Hughes,  Todd,  and  Morris.  The  letters  are  of 
April,  1579,  and  October,  1580. 


I.]  SPENSER'S  EARLY  LIFE.  23 

Spenser  had  become  acquainted  with  Philip  Sidney,  and 
Sidney's  literary  and   courtly   friends.     He  had  been  re- 
ceived into  the  household  of  Sidney's  uncle,  Lord  Leices 
ter,  and  dates  one  of  his  letters  from  Leicester  House. 
Among    his    employments   he   had    written    "  Stemmata 
Dudleiana"     He  is  doubting  whether  or  not  to  publish, 
"to    utter,"  some    of   his    poetical    compositions:    he   is 
doubting,  and  asks  Harvey's  advice,  whether  or  not  to  ded- 
icate them  to  His  Excellent  Lordship,  "  lest  by  our  much 
cloying  their  noble  ears  he  should  gather  contempt  of  my- 
self, or  else  seem  rather  for  gain  and  commodity  to  do  it, 
and  some  sweetness  that  I  have  already  tasted."     Yet,  he 
thinks,  that  when  occasion  is  so  fairly  offered  of  estima- 
tion and  preferment,  it  may  be  well  to  use  it :  "  while  the 
iron  is  hot,  it  is  good  striking  ;  and  minds  of  nobles  vary, 
as  their  estates."     And  he  was   on    the   eve  of  starting 
across  the   sea  to  be  employed  in  Leicester's  service,  on 
some  permanent  mission  in  France,  perhaps  in  connexion 
with  the  Alencon  intrigues.     He  was  thus  launched  into 
what  was  looked  upon  as  the  road  to  preferment ;  in  his 
case,  as  it  turned  out,  a  very  subordinate  form  of  public 
employment,  which  was  to  continue  almost  for  his  life- 
time.    Sidney  had  recognized  his  unusual  power,  if  not 
yet  his  genius.     He  brought  him  forward  ;  perhaps  he  ac- 
cepted him  as  a  friend.     Tradition   makes  him  Sidney's 
companion  at  Penshurst ;  in  his  early  poems,  Kent  is  the 
county  with   which   he   seems  most  familiar.     But    Sid- 
ney certainly  made  him  known  to  the  queen  ;  he  proba- 
bly recommended  him  as  a  promising  servant  to  Leices- 
ter: and  he  impressed  his  own  noble  and  beautiful  charac- 
ter deeply  on  Spenser's  mind.     Spenser  saw  and  learned 
in  him  what  was  then  the  highest  type  of  the  finished 
gentleman.      He  led  Spenser   astray.      Sidney   was   not 


24  SPENSER.  [chap. 

without  his  full  share  of  that  affectation,  which  was  then 
thought  refinement.  Like  Gabriel  Harve)r,  he  induced 
Spenser  to  waste  his  time  on  the  artificial  versifying  which 
was  in  vogue.  But  such  faults  and  mistakes  of  fashion, 
and  in  one  shape  or  another  they  are  inevitable  in  all 
ages,  were  as  nothing,  compared  to  the  influence  on  a 
highly  receptive  nature,  of  a  character  so  elevated  and 
pure,  so  genial,  so  brave  and  true.  It  was  not  in  vain  that 
Spenser  was  thus  brought  so  near  to  his  "Astrophel." 

These  letters  tell  us  all  that  we  know  of  Spenser's  life 
at  this  time.  During  these  anxious  eighteen  months,  and 
connected  with  persons  like  Sidney  and  Leicester,  Spenser 
only  writes  to  Harvey  on  literary  subjects.  He  is  dis- 
creet, and  will  not  indulge  Harvey's  "  desire  to  hear  of  my 
late  being  with  her  Majesty."  According  to  a  literary 
fashion  of  the  time,  he  writes  and  is  addressed  as  M.  Im- 
merito,  and  the  great  business  which  occupies  him  and  fills 
the  letters  is  the  scheme  devised  in  Sidney's  Areopagus  for 
the  "  general  surceasing  and  silence  of  bald  Rymers,  and 
also  of  the  very  best  of  them  too ;  and  for  prescribing  cer- 
tain laws  and  rules  of  quantities  of  English  syllables  for 
English  verse."  Spenser  "  is  more  in  love  with  his  Eng- 
lish versifying  than  with  ryining" — "which,"  he  says  to 
Harvey,  "  I  should  have  done  long  since,  if  I  would  then 
have  followed  your  counsel."  Harvey,  of  course,  is  de- 
lighted ;  he  thanks  the  good  angel  which  puts  it  into  the 
heads  of  Sidney  and  Edward  Dyer,  "the  two  very  dia- 
monds of  her  Majesty's  court,"  "  our  very  Castor  and  Pol- 
lux," to  "  help  forward  our  new  famous  enterprise  for  the 
exchanging  of  barbarous  rymes  for  artificial  verses ;"  and 
the  whole  subject  is  discussed  at  great  length  between  the 
two  friends;  "  Mr.  Drant's  "  rules  are  compared  with  those 
of  "  Mr.  Sidney,"  revised  by  "  Mr.  Immerito  ;"  and  exam- 


i.]  SPENSER'S  EARLY  LIFE.  25 

pies,  highly  illustrative  of  the  character  of  the  "  famous 
enterprise,"  are  copiously  given.  In  one  of  Harvey's  let- 
ters we  have  a  curious  account  of  changes  of  fashion  in 
studies  and  ideas  at  Cambridge.  They  seem  to  have 
changed  since  Spenser's  time. 

"  I  beseech  you  all  this  while,  what  news  at  Cambridge  ?  Tully 
and  Demosthenes  nothing  so  much  studied  as  they  were  wont :  Livy 
and  Sallust  perhaps  more,  rather  than  less  :  Lucian  never  so  much : 
Aristotle  much  named  but  little  read :  Xenophon  and  Plato  reckoned 
amongst  discoursers,  and  conceited  superficial  fellows ;  much  verbal 
and  sophistical  jangling;  little  subtle  and  effectual  disputing.  Mach- 
iavel  a  great  man :  Castillo  of  no  small  repute .  Petrarch  and  Boccace 
in  every  man's  mouth  :  Galateo  and  Guazzo  never  so  happy :  but 
some  acquainted  with  Uhico  Arelino:  the  French  and  Italian  highly 
regarded :  the  Latin  and  Greek  but  lightly.  The  Queen  Mother  at 
the  beginning  or  end  of  every  conference .  all  inquisitive  after  news  : 
new  books,  new  fashions,  new  laws,  new  officers,  and  some  after  new 
elements,  some  after  new  heavens  and  hells  too.  Turkish  affairs  fa- 
miliarly known :  castles  built  in  the  air .  much  ado,  and  little  help  : 
in  no  age  so  little  so  much  made  of,  every  one  highly  in  his  own 
favour.  Something  made  of  nothing,  in  spight  of  Nature :  numbers 
made  of  cyphers,  in  spight  of  Art.  Oxen  and  asses,  notwithstanding 
the  absurdity  it  seemed  to  Plautus,  drawing  in  the  same  yoke :  the 
Gospel  taught,  not  learnt ;  Charity  cold  ;  nothing  good  but  by  impu- 
tation ;  the  Ceremonial  Law  in  word  abrogated,  the  Judicial  in  effect 
disannull'd,  the  Moral  abandon'd ;  the  Light,  the  Light  in  every  man's 
lips,  but  mark  their  eyes,  and  you  will  say  they  are  rather  like  owls 
than  eagles.  As  of  old  books,  so  of  ancient  virtue,  honesty,  fidelity, 
equity,  new  abridgments;  every  day  spawns  new  opinions:  heresy 
in  divinity,  in  philosophy,  in  humanity,  in  manners,  grounded  upon 
hearsay;  doctors  contemn'd;  the  devil  not  so  hated  as  the  pope; 
many  invectives,  but  no  amendment.  No  more  ado  about  caps  and 
surplices ;  Mr.  Cartwright  quite  forgotten. 

******* 

David,  Ulysses,  and  Solon  feign'd  themselves  fools  and  madmen ; 
our  fools  and  madmen  feign  themselves  Davids,  Ulysses's,  and  Solons. 

2* 


'26  SPENSER.  [chap. 

It  is  pity  fair  weather  should  do  any  hurt ;  but  I  know  what  peace 
and  quietness  hath  done  with  some  melancholy  pickstraws." 

The  letters  preserve  a  good  many  touches  of  character 
which  are  interesting.  This,  for  instance,  which  shows 
Spenser's  feeling  about  Sidney.  "  New  books,"  writes 
Spenser,  "  I  hear  of  none,  but  only  of  one,  that  writing  a 
certain  book  called  The  School  of  Abuse  [Stephen  Gos- 
son's  Invective  against  poets,  pipers,  players,  <£c],  and  ded- 
icating to  M.  Sidney,  was  for  his  labour  scorned :  if  at 
least  it  be  in  the  goodness  of  that  nature  to  scorn.''''  As  re- 
gards Spenser  himself,  it  is  clear  from  the  letters  that  Har- 
vey was  not  without  uneasiness  lest  his  friend,  from  his 
gay  and  pleasure-loving  nature,  and  the  temptations  round 
him,  should  be  carried  away  into  the  vices  of  an  age 
which,  though  very  brilliant  and  high-tempered,  was  also 
a  very  dissolute  one.  He  couches  his  counsels  mainly  in 
Latin ;  but  they  point  to  real  danger ;  and  he  adds  in 
English — "Credit  me,  I  will  never  lin  [=cease]  baiting  at 
you,  till  I  have  rid  you  quite  of  this  yonkerly  and  woman- 
ly humour."  But  in  the  second  pair  of  letters  of  April, 
1580,  a  lady  appears.  Whether  Spenser  was  her  husband 
or  her  lover,  we  know  not ;  but  she  is  his  "  sweetheart." 
The  two  friends  write  of  her  in  Latin.  Spenser  sends  in 
Latin  the  saucy  messages  of  his  sweetheart,  "  meum  corcu- 
lum,"  to  Harvey ;  Harvey,  with  academic  gallantry,  sends 
her  in  Latin  as  many  thanks  for  her  charming  letter  as 
she  has  hairs,  "  half  golden,  half  silver,  half  jewelled,  in 
her  little  head  ;" — -she  is  a  second  little  Rosalind — "  altera 
Rosalindula,"  whom  he  salutes  as  "  Domina  Immerito,  mea 
bellissima  Colina  Clouta."  But  whether  wife  or  mistress, 
we  hear  of  her  no  more.  Further,  the  letters  contain  no- 
tices of  various  early  works  of  Spenser.  The  "  new " 
She})henVs  Calendar,  of  which  more  will  be  said,  had  just 


i.]  SPENSER'S  EARLY  LIFE.  21 

been  published.  And  in  this  correspondence  of  April, 
1580,  we  have  the  first  mention  of  the  Faerie  Queene. 
The  compositions  here  mentioned  have  been  either  lost, 
or  worked  into  his  later  poetry ;  his  Dreams,  Epithalamion 
Thamesis,  apparently  in  the  "reformed  verse,"  his  Dying 
Pelican,  his  Slumber,  his  Stemmata  Dudleiana,  his  Come- 
dies. They  show  at  least  the  activity  and  eagerness  of 
the  writer  in  his  absorbing  pursuit.  But  he  was  still  in 
bondage  to  the  belief  that  English  poetry  ought  to  try  to 
put  on  a  classical  dress.  It  is  strange  that  the  man  who 
had  written  some  of  the  poetry  in  the  Shejiherd's  Calen- 
dar should  have  found  either  satisfaction  or  promise  in 
the  following  attempt  at  Trimeter  Iambics. 

"  And  nowe  requite  I  you  with  the  like,  not  with  the  verye  beste, 
but  with  the  verye  shortest,  namely,  with  a  few  Iainbickes :  I  dare 
warrant  they  be  precisely  perfect  for  the  feete  (as  you  can  easily 
judge),  and  varie  not  one  inch  from  the  Rule.  I  will  imparte  yours 
to  Maister  Sidney  and  Maister  Dyer  at  my  nexte  going  to  the  Courte. 
I  praye  you,  keepe  mine  close  to  yourself,  or  your  verie  entire  friends, 
Maister  Preston,  Maister  Still,  and  the  reste. 

"  Iambieum  Trimelrum. 
"  Unhappie  Verse,  the  witnesse  of  my  unhappie  state, 
Make  thy  selfe  fluttring  wings  of  thy  fast  flying 
Thought,  and  fly  forth  unto  my  Love  wheresoever  she  be  : 

"  Whether  lying  reastlesse  in  heavy  bedde,  or  else 

Sitting  so  cheerlesse  at  the  cheerfull  boorde,  or  else 
Playing  alone. carelesse  on  hir  heavenlie  Virginals. 

"  If  in  Bed,  tell  hir,  that  my  eyes  can  take  no  reste : 

If  at  Boorde,  tell  hir  that  my  mouth  can  eate  no  meate : 
If  at  hir  Virginals,  tell  hir  I  can  heare  no  mirth. 

"Asked  why  ?  say :  Waking  Love  suffereth  no  sleepe : 

Say,  that  raging  Love  dothe  appall  the  weake  stomacke : 
Say,  that  lamenting  Love  marreth  the  Musicall. 


28  SPENSER.  [chap.  i. 

"  Tell  hir,  that  hir  pleasures  were  wonte  to  lull  me  asleepe : 
Tell  hir,  that  hir  beautie  was  wonte  to  feede  mine  eyes : 
Tell  hir,  that  hir  sweete  Tongue  was  wonte  to  make  me  mirth. 

"  Nowe  doe  I  nightly  waste,  wanting  my  kindely  reste : 
Nowe  doe  I  dayly  starve,  wanting  my  lively  foode : 
Nowe  doe  I  alwayes  dye,  wanting  thy  timely  mirth. 

"  And  if  I  waste,  who  will  bewaile  my  heavy  chaunce  ? 
And  if  I  starve,  who  will  record  my  cursed  end  ? 
And  if  I  dye,  who  will  saye :  this  was  ImmeritoP 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE  NEW  POET THE  SHEPHERD'S  CALENDAR. 

[1579.] 

It  is  clear  that  when  Spenser  appeared  in  London,  he 
had  found  out  his  powers  and  vocation  as  a  poet.  He 
came  from  Cambridge,  fully  conscious  of  the  powerful 
attraction  of  the  imaginative  faculties,  conscious  of  an  ex- 
traordinary command  over  the  resources  of  language,  and 
with  a  singular  gift  of  sensitiveness  to  the  grace  and  maj- 
esty and  suggestiveness  of  sound  and  rhythm,  such  as 
makes  a  musician.  And  whether  he  knew  it  or  not,  his 
mind  was  in  reality  made  up,  as  to  what  his  English  poe- 
try was  to  be.  In  spite  of  opinions  and  fashions  round 
him,  in  spite  of  university  pedantry  and  the  affectations 
of  the  court,  in  spite  of  Harvey's  classical  enthusiasm  and 
Sidney's  Areopagus,  and  in  spite  of  half-fancying  himself 
converted  to  their  views,  his  own  powers  and  impulses 
showed  him  the  truth,  and  made  him  understand  better 
than  his  theories  what  a  poet  could  and  ought  to  do  with 
English  speech  in  its  free  play  and  genuine  melodies. 
When  we  first  come  upon  him,  we  find  that  at  the  age  of 
twenty-seven,  he  had  not  only  realized  an  idea  of  English 
poetry  far  in  advance  of  anything  which  his  age  had  yet 
conceived  or  seen  ;  but  that,  besides  what  he  had  executed 
or  planned,  he  had  already  in  his  mind  the  outlines  of 


30  SPENSER.  [chap. 

the  Faerie  Queene,  and,  in  some  form  or  other,  though  per- 
haps not  }'et  as  we  have  it,  had  written  some  portion  of  it. 
In  attempting  to  revive  for  his  own  age  Chaucer's  sus- 
pended art,  Spenser  had  the  tendencies  of  the  time  with 
him.  The  age  was  looking  out  for  some  one  to  do  for 
England  what  had  been  grandly  done  for  Italy.  The  time, 
in  truth,  was  full  of  poetry.  The  nation  was  just  in  that 
condition  which  is  most  favourable  to  an  outburst  of  poet- 
ical life  or  art.  It  was  highly  excited ;  but  it  was  also  in 
a  state  of  comparative  peace  and  freedom  from  external 
disturbance.  "An  over -faint  quietness,"  writes  Sidney 
in  1581,  lamenting  that  there  were  so  few  good  poets, 
"  should  seem  to  strew  the  house  for  poets."  After  the 
first  ten  years  of  Elizabeth's  reign,  and  the  establishment 
of  her  authority,  the  country  had  begun  to  breathe  freely, 
and  fall  into  natural  and  regular  ways.  During  the  first 
half  of  the  century,  it  had  had  before  it  the  most  aston- 
ishing changes  which  the  world  had  seen  for  centuries. 
These  changes  seemed  definitely  to  have  run  their  course ; 
with  the  convulsions  which  accompanied  them,  their  up- 
rootings  and  terrors,  they  were  gone ;  and  the  world  had 
become  accustomed  to  their  results.  The  nation  still  had 
before  it  great  events,  great  issues,  great  perils,  great  and 
indefinite  prospects  of  adventure  and  achievement.  The 
old  quarrels  and  animosities  of  Europe  had  altered  in 
character :  from  being  wars  between  princes,  and  disputes 
of  personal  ambition,  they  had  attracted  into  them  all  that 
interests  and  divides  mankind,  from  high  to  low.  Their 
animating  principle  was  a  high  and  a  sacred  cause :  they 
had  become  wars  of  liberty,  and  wars  of  religion.  The 
world  had  settled  down  to  the  fixed  antipathies  and  steady 
rivalries  of  centuries  to  come.  But  the  mere  shock  of 
transition  was  over.     Yet  the  remembrance  of  the  great 


ii.]   THE  NEW  POET— THE  SHEPHERD'S  CALENDAR.   31 

break-up  was  still  fresh.  For  fifty  years  the  English  peo- 
ple had  had  before  its  eyes  the  great  vicissitudes  which 
make  tragedy.  They  had  seen  the  most  unforeseen  and 
most  unexpected  revolutions  in  what  had  for  ages  been 
held  certain  and  immovable ;  the  overthrow  of  the  strong- 
est institutions,  and  most  venerable  authorities;  the  vio- 
lent shifting  of  feelings  from  faith  to  passionate  rejection, 
from  reverence  to  scorn  and  a  hate  which  could  not  be 
satisfied.  They  had  seen  the  strangest  turns  of  fortune, 
the  most  wonderful  elevations  to  power,  the  most  terrible 
visitations  of  disgrace.  They  had  seen  the  mightiest 
ruined,  the  brightest  and  most  admired  brought  down 
to  shame  and  death,  men  struck  down  with  all  the  forms 
of  law,  whom  the  age  honoured  as  its  noblest  ornaments. 
They  had  seen  the  flames  of  martyr  or  heretic,  heads  which 
had  worn  a  crown  laid  one  after  another  on  the  block, 
controversies,  not  merely  between  rivals  for  power,  but  be- 
tween the  deepest  principles  and  the  most  rooted  creeds, 
settled  on  the  scaffold.  Such  a  time  of  surprise — of  hope 
and  anxiety,  of  horror  and  anguish  to-day,  of  relief  and 
exultation  to-morrow — had  hardly  been  to  England  as  the 
first  half  of  the  sixteenth  century.  All  that  could  stir 
men's  souls,  all  that  could  inflame  their  hearts,  or  that 
could  wring  them,  had  happened. 

And  yet,  compared  with  previous  centuries,  and  with 
what  was  going  on  abroad,  the  time  now  was  a  time  of 
peace,  and  men  lived  securely.  Wealth  was  increasing. 
The  Wars  of  the  Roses  had  left  the  crown  powerful  to 
enforce  order,  and  protect  industry  and  trade.  The  na- 
tion was  beginning  to  grow  rich.  When  the  day's  work 
was  done,  men's  leisure  was  not  disturbed  by  the  events 
of  neighbouring  war.  They  had  time  to  open  their  imag- 
inations to  the  great  spectacle  which  had  been  unrolled 


32  SPENSER.  [chap. 

before  them,  to  reflect  upon  it,  to  put  into  shape  their 
thoughts  about  it.  The  intellectual  movement  of  the 
time  had  reached  England,  and  its  strong  impulse  to  men- 
tal efforts  in  new  and  untried  directions  was  acting  pow- 
erfully upon  Englishmen.  But  though  there  was  order 
and  present  peace  at  home,  there  was  much  to  keep  men's 
minds  on  the  stretch.  There  was  quite  enough  danger 
and  uncertainty  to  wind  up  their  feelings  to  a  high  pitch. 
But  danger  was  not  so  pressing  as  to  prevent  them  from 
giving  full  place  to  the  impressions  of  the  strange  and 
eventful  scene  round  them,  with  its  grandeur,  its  sadness-, 
its  promises.  In  such  a  state  of  things  there  is  every- 
thing to  tempt  poetry.  There  are  its  materials  and  its 
stimulus,  and  there  is  the  leisure  to  use  its  materials. 

But  the  poet  had  not  yet  been  found;  and  everything 
connected  with  poetry  was  in  the  disorder  of  ignorance 
and  uncertainty.  Between  the  counsels  of  a  pedantic 
scholarship,  and  the  rude  and  hesitating,  but  true  instincts 
of  the  natural  English  ear,  every  one  was  at  sea.  Yet  it 
seemed  as  if  every  one  was  trying  his  hand  at  verse.  Pop- 
ular writing  took  that  shape.  The  curious  and  unique 
record  of  literature  preserved  in  the  registers  of  the  Sta- 
tioners' Company,  shows  that  the  greater  proportion  of 
what  was  published,  or  at  least  entered  for  publication, 
was  in  the  shape  of  ballads.  Th&  ballad  ^yied  with  the 
sermon  in  doing  what  the  modern  newspaper  does,  in  sat- 
isfying the  public  craving  for  information,  amusement, 
or  guidance.  It  related  the  last  great  novelty,  the  last 
great  battle  or  crime,  a  storm  or  monstrous  birth.  It  told 
some  pathetic  or  burlesque  story,  or  it  moralized  on  the 
humours  or  follies  of  classes  and  professions,  of  young  and 
old,  of  men  and  of  women.  It  sang  the  lover's  hopes  or 
sorrows,  or  the  adventures  of  some  hero  of  history  or  n> 


ii.]   THE  NEW  POET— THE  SHEPHERD'S  CALENDAR.   33 

mance.  It  might  be  a  fable,  a  satire,  a  libel,  a  squib,  a  sa- 
cred song  or  paraphrase,  a  homily.  But  about  all  that  it 
treated  it  sought  to  throw  more  or  less  the  colour  of  im- 
agination. It  appealed  to  the  reader's  feelings,  or  sympa- 
thy, or  passion.  It  attempted  to  raise  its  subject  above 
the  level  of  mere  matter  of  fact.  It  sought  for  choice  and 
expressive  words ;  it  called  in  the  help  of  measure  and 
rhythm.  It  aimed  at  a  rude  form  of  art.  Presently  the 
critical  faculty  came  into  play.  Scholars,  acquainted  with 
classical  models  and  classical  rules,  began  to  exercise  their 
judgment  on  their  own  poetry,  to  construct  theories,  to  re- 
view the  performances  before  them,  to  suggest  plans  for  the 
improvement  of  the  poetic  art.  Their  essays  are  curious, 
as  the  beginnings  of  that  great  critical  literature,  which  in 
England,  in  spite  of  much  infelicity,  has  only  been  second 
to  the  poetry  which  it  judged.  But  in  themselves  they  are 
crude,  meagre,  and  helpless ;  interesting  mainly  as  show- 
ing how  much  craving  there  was  for  poetry,  and  how  little 
good  poetry  to  satisfy  it,  and  what  inconceivable  doggerel 
could  be  recommended  by  reasonable  men,  as  fit  to  be  ad- 
mired and  imitated.  There  is  fire  and  eloquence  in  Philip 
Sidney's  Apologie  for  Poetrie  (1581)  ;  but  his  ideas  about 
poetry  were  floating,  loose,  and  ill-defined,  and  he  had  not 
much  to  point  to  as  of  first-rate  excellence  in  recent 
writers.  Webbe's  Discourse  of  English  Poetrie  (1586), 
and  the  more  elaborate  work  ascribed  to  George  Putten- 
ham  (1589),  works  of  tame  and  artificial  learning  without 
Sidney's  fire,  reveal  equally  the  poverty,  as  a  whole,  of 
what  had  been  as  yet  produced  in  England  as  poetry,  in 
spite  of  the  wide-spread  passion  for  poetry.  The  speci- 
mens which  they  quote  and  praise  are  mostly  grotesque  to 
the  last  degree.  Webbe  improves  some  gracefully  flowing 
lines  of  Spenser's  into  the  most  portentous  Sapphics ;  and 


34  SPENSER.  [chap. 

Puttenham  squeezes  compositions  into  the  shapes  of  tri- 
angles, eggs,  and  pilasters.  Gabriel  Harvey  is  accused  by 
his  tormentor,  Nash,  of  doing  the  same,  "  of  having  writ 
verse  in  all  kinds,  as  in  form  of  a  pair  of  gloves,  a  dozen 
of  points,  a  pair  of  spectacles,  a  two-hand  sword,  a  poyna- 
do,  a  colossus,  a  pyramid,  a  painter's  easel,  a  market  cross, 
a  trumpet,  an  anchor,  a  pair  of  pot-hooks."  Puttenham's 
Art  of  Poetry,  with  its  books,  one  on  Proportion,  the  other 
on  Ornament,  might  be  compared  to  an  Art  of  War,  of 
which  one  book  treated  of  barrack  drill,  and  the  other  of 
busbies,  sabretasches,  and  different  forms  of  epaulettes  and 
feathers.  These  writers  do  not  want  good  sense  or  the 
power  to  make  a  good  remark.  But  the  stuff  and  mate- 
rial for  good  criticism,  the  strong  and  deep  poetry,  which 
makes  such  criticisms  as  theirs  seem  so  absurd,  had  not 
yet  appeared. 

A  change  was  at  hand ;  and  the  suddenness  of  it  is  one 
of  the  most  astonishing  things  in  literary  history.  The 
ten  years  from  1580  to  1590  present  a  set  of  critical  es- 
says, giving  a  picture  of  English  poetry  of  which,  though 
there  are  gleams  of  a  better  hope,  and  praise  is  specially 
bestowed  on  a  "  new  poet,"  the  general  character  is  feeble- 
ness, fantastic  absurdity,  affectation,  and  bad  taste.  Force, 
and  passion,  and  simple  truth,  and  powerful  thoughts  of 
the  world  and  man,  are  rare;  and  poetical  reformers  ap- 
pear maundering  about  miserable  attempts  at  English  hex- 
ameters and  sapphics.  What  was  to  be  looked  for  from 
all  that?  Who  could  suppose  what  was  preparing  under 
it  all  ?  But  the  dawn  was  come.  The  next  ten  years, 
from  1590  to  1600,  not  only  saw  the  Faerie  Queene,  but 
they  were  the  years  of  the  birth  of  the  English  Drama. 
Compare  the  idea  which  we  get  of  English  poetry  from 
Philip  Sidney's  Defense  in  1581,  and  Puttenham's  treatise 


ii.]   THE  NEW  POET— THE  SHEPHERD'S  CALENDAR.   35 

in  1589,  I  do  not  say  with  Shakespere,  but  with  Lamb's 
selections  from  the  Dramatic  Poets,  many  of  them  un- 
known names  to  the  majority  of  modern  readers  ;  and  we 
see  at  once  what  a  bound  English  poetry  has  made  ;  we 
see  that  a  new  spring-time  of  power  and  purpose  in  poet- 
ical thought  has  opened  ;  new  and  original  forms  have 
sprung  to  life  of  poetical  grandeur,  seriousness,  and  mag- 
nificence. From  the  poor  and  rude  play-houses,  with  their 
troops  of  actors,  most  of  them  profligate  and  disreputable, 
their  coarse  excitements,  their  buffoonery,  license,  and  taste 
for  the  monstrous  and  horrible  —  denounced  not  without 
reason  as  corrupters  of  public  morals,  preached  against  at 
Paul's  Cross,  expelled  the  city  by  the  Corporation,  classed 
by  the  law  with  rogues,  vagabonds,  and  sturdy  beggars, 
and  patronized  by  the  great  and  unscrupulous  nobles  in 
defiance  of  it — there  burst  forth  suddenly  a  new  poetry, 
which  with  its  reality,  depth,  sweetness  and  nobleness  took 
the  world  captive.  The  poetical  ideas  and  aspirations  of 
the  Englishmen  of  the  time  had  found  at  last  adequate  in- 
terpreters, and  their  own  national  and  unrivalled  expression. 
And  in  this  great  movement  Spenser  was  the  harbin- 
ger and  announcing  sign.  But  he  was  only  the  harbinger. 
What  he  did  was  to  reveal,  to  English  ears  as  it  never  had 
been  revealed  before,  at  least,  since  the  days  of  Chaucer, 
the  sweet  music,  the  refined  grace,  the  inexhaustible  ver- 
satility of  the  English  tongue.  But  his  own  efforts  were 
in  a  different  direction  from  that  profound  and  insatiable 
seeking  after  the  real,  in  thought  and  character,  in  repre- 
sentation and  expression,  which  made  Shakespere  so  great, 
and  his  brethren  great  in  proportion  as  they  approached 
him.  Spenser's  genius  continued  to  the  end  under  the  in- 
fluences which  were  so  powerful  when  it  first  unfolded  it- 
self.    To  the  last  it  allied  itself,  in  form  at  least,  with  the 


36  SPENSER.  [chap. 

artificial.  To  the  last  it  moved  in  a  world  which  was  not 
real,  which  never  had  existed,  which,  any  how,  was  only  a 
world  of  memory  and  sentiment.  He  never  threw  him- 
self frankly  on  human  life  as  it  is  ;  he  always  viewed  it 
through  a  veil  of  mist  which  greatly  altered  its  true  col- 
ours, and  often  distorted  its  proportions.  And  thus  while 
more  than  any  one  he  prepared  the  instruments  and  the 
path  for  the  great  triumph,  he  himself  missed  the  true  field 
for  the  highest  exercise  of  poetic  power ;  he  missed  the 
highest  honours  of  that  in  which  he  led  the  way. 

Yet,  curiously  enough,  it  seems  as  if,  early  in  his  career, 
he  was  affected  by  the  strong  stream  which  drew  Shake- 
spere.  Among  the  compositions  of  his  first  period,  be- 
sides The  Shepherd's  Calendar,  are  Nine  Comedies — clear- 
ly real  plays,  which  his  friend  Gabriel  Harvey  praised  with 
enthusiasm.  As  early  as  1579  Spenser  had  laid  before 
Gabriel  Harvey,  for  his  judgment  and  advice,  a  portion  of 
the  Faerie  Queene  in  some  shape  or  another,  and  these 
nine  comedies.  He  was  standing  at  the  parting  of  the 
ways.  The  allegory,  with  all  its  tempting  associations  and 
machinery,  with  its  ingenuities  and  pictures,  and  bound- 
less license  to  vagueness  and  to  fancy,  was  on  one  side ; 
and  on  the  other,  the  drama,  with  its  prima  facie  and  su- 
perficially prosaic  aspects,  and  its  kinship  to  what  was  cus- 
tomary and  commonplace  and  unromantic  in  human  life. 
Of  the  nine  comedies  composed  on  the  model  of  those  of 
Ariosto  and  Machiavelli  and  other  Italians,  every  trace  has 
perished.  But  this  was  Gabriel  Harvey's  opinion  of  the 
respective  value  of  the  two  specimens  of  work  submitted 
to  him,  and  this  was  his  counsel  to  their  author.  In  April, 
1580,  he  thus  writes  to  Spenser: 

"  In  good  faith  I  had  once   again    nigh    forgotten  your  Faerie 
Queene ;  howbeit,  by  good  chance,  I  have  now  sent  her  home  at  the 


n.]   THE  NEW  POET— THE  SHEPHERD'S  CALENDAR.   37 

last  neither  in  better  or  worse  case  than  I  found  her.  And  must  you 
of  necessity  have  my  judgment  of  her  indeed  ?  To  be  plain,  I  am 
void  of  all  judgment,  if  your  Nine  Comedies,  whereunto  in  imitation 
of  Herodotus,  you  give  the  names  of  the  Nine  Muses  (and  in  one 
man's  fancy  not  ua»erthily),  come  not  nearer  Ariosto's  comedies, 
either  for  the  fineness  of  plausible  elocution,  or  the  rareness  of  poet- 
ical invention,  than  that  Elvish  Queen  doth  to  his  Orlando  Furioso, 
which  notwithstanding  you  will  needs  seem  to  emulate  and  hope  to 
overgo,  as  you  flatly  professed  yourself  in  one  of  your  last  letters. 

"  Besides  that  you  know,  it  hath  been  the  usual  practice  of  the  most 
exquisite  and  odd  wits  in  all  nations,  and  specially  in  Italy,  rather  to 
show,  and  advance  themselves  that  way  than  any  other :  as,  namely, 
those  three  notorious  discoursing  heads  Bibiena,  Machiavel,  and  Are- 
tino  did  (to  let  Bembo  andAriosto  pass)  with  the  great  admiration 
and  wonderment  of  the  whole  country :  being  indeed  reputed  match- 
able  in  all  points,  both  for  conceit  of  wit  and  eloquent  deciphering  of 
matters,  either  with  Aristophanes  and  Menander  in  Greek,  or  with 
Plautus  and  Terence  in  Latin,  or  with  any  other  in  any  other  tongue. 
But  I  will  not  stand  greatly  with  you  in  your  own  matters.  If  so  be 
the  Faerie  Queene  be  fairer  in  your  eye  than  the  Nine  Muses,  and 
Hobgoblin  run  away  with  the  garland  from  Apollo :  mark  what  I  say, 
and  yet  I  will  not  say  that  I  thought,  but  there  is  an  end  for  this 
once,  and  fare  you  well,  till  God  or  some  good  angel  put  you  in  a  bet- 
ter mind." 

It  is  plain  on  which  side  Spenser's  own  judgment  in- 
clined. He  had  probably  written  the  comedies,  as  he  had 
written  English  hexameters,  out  of  deference  to  others,  or 
to  try  his  hand.  But  the  current  of  his  own  secret 
thoughts,  those  thoughts,  with  their  ideals  and  aims,  which 
tell  a  man  what  he  is  made  for,  and  where  his  power  lies, 
set  another  way.  The  Faerie  Queene  was  "  fairer  in  his 
eye  than  the  Nine  Muses,  and  Hobgoblin  did  run  away 
with  the  garland  from  Apollo."  What  Gabriel  Harvey 
prayed  for  as  the  "better  mind"  did  not  come.  And  we 
cannot  repine  at  a  decision  which  gave  us,  in  the  shape 
which  it  took  at  last,  the  allegory  of  the  Faerie  Queene. 

SAT 


38  SPENSER.  [chap. 

But  the  Faerie  Queene,  though  already  planned  and  per- 
haps begun,  belongs  to  the  last  ten  years  of  the  century, 
to  the  season  of  fulfilment,  not  of  promise,  to  the  blossom- 
ing, not  to  the  opening  bud.  The  new  hopes  for  poetry 
which  Spenser  brought  were  given  in  a  work,  which  the 
Faerie  Queene  has  eclipsed  and  almost  obscured,  as  the 
sun  puts  out  the  morning  star.  Yet  that  which  marked  a 
turning-point  in  the  history  of  our  poetry,  was  the  book 
which  came  out,  timidly  and  anonymously,  in  the  end  of 
1579,  or  the  beginning  of  1580,  under  the  borrowed  title 
of  ihe(She])herd's  Calendar,  a  name  familiar  in  those  days 
as  that  of  an  early  medley  of  astrology  and  homely  re- 
</  ceipts  from  time  to  time  reprinted,  which  was  the  Moore's 
or  Zadkiel'a  almanac  of  the  time.\  It  was  not  published 
ostensibly  by  Spenser  himself,  though  it  is  inscribed  to 
Philip  Sidney  in  a  copy  of  verses  signed  with  Spenser's 
masking  name  of  Immerito.  The  avowed  responsibility 
for  it  might  have  been  inconvenient  for  a  young  man 
pushing  his  fortune  among  the  cross  currents  of  Eliza- 
beth's court.  But  it  was  given  to  the  world  by  a  friend 
of  the  author's,  signing  himself  E.  K.,  now  identified  with 
Spenser's  fellow-student  at  Pembroke,  Edward  Kirke,  who 
dedicates  it  in  a  long,  critical  epistle  of  some  interest  to 
the  author's  friend,  Gabriel  Harvey,  and,  after  the  fashion 
of  some  of  the  Italian  books  of  poetry,  accompanies  it  with 
a  gloss,  explaining  words,  and  to  a  certain  extent,  allusions. 
Two  things  are  remarkable  in  Kirke's  epistle.  One  is  the 
confidence  with  which  he  announces  the  vet  unrecognized 
excellence  of  "this  one  new  poet,"  whom  he  is  not  afraid 
to  put  side  by  side  with  "  that  good  old  poet,"  Chaucer, 
the  "  loadstar  of  our  language."  The  other  point  is  the 
absolute  reliance  which  he  places  on  the  powers  of  the 
English  language,  handled  by  one  who  has  discerned  its 


II.]   THE  NEW  POET— THE  SHEPHERD'S  CALENDAR.   39 

genius,  and  is  not  afraid  to  use  its  wealth.  "  In  my  opin- 
ion, it  is  one  praise  of  many  that  are  due  to  this  poet,  that 
he  hath  laboured  to  restore,  as  to  their  rightful  heritage, 
such  good  and  natural  English  words  as  have  been  long 
time  out  of  use,  or  almost  clean  disherited,  which  is  the 
only  cause,  that  our  mother-tongue,  which  truly  of  itself  is 
both  full  enough  for  prose,  and  stately  enough  for  verse, 
hath  long  time  been  counted  most  bare  and  barren  of 
both."  The  friends,  Kirke  and  Harvey,  were  not  wrong 
in  their  estimate  of  the  importance  of  Spenser's  work. 
The  "  new  poet,"  as  he  came  to  be  customarily  called,  had 
really  made  one  of  those  distinct  steps  in  his  art,  which 
answer  to  discoveries  and  inventions  in  other  spheres  of 
human  interest — steps  which  make  all  behind  them  seem 
obsolete  and  mistaken.  There  was  much  in  the  new  po- 
etry which  was  immature  and  imperfect,  not  a  little  that 
was  fantastic  and  affected.  But  it  was  the  first  adequate 
effort  of  reviving  English  poetry. 
/~^  The  Shepherd's  Calendar  consists  of  twelve  composi- 
tions, with  no  other  internal  connexion  than  that  they  are 
assigned  respectively  to  the  twelve  months  of  the  year. 
They  are  all  different  in  subject,  metre,  character,  and  ex- 
cellence. They  are  called  jEglogues,  according  to  the 
whimsical  derivation  adopted  from  the  Italians  of  the 
word  which  the  classical  writers  call  Eclogues :  "uHJglogai, 
as  it  were  atywu  or  aiyoru}iu>v  \6yoi ;  that  is,  Goatherd's 
Tales."  Tljp  hppk  in  in  it"i  form  an  imitation  of  that  high- 
ly  artificial  kind  of  poetry  which  the  later  Italians  of  the 
Ponalcgor^A  \xu(\  r»npjorl  frpm  Virgil,  as  Virgil  had  copied 
it  from  the  Sicilian  anH  MQynjidrinn  <^rpQl-g,  and  to  which 
had  been  given  the  name  of  Bucolic  or  Pastoral.  Petrarch, 
in  Imitation  of  Virgil,  had  written  Latin  Bucolics,  as  he 
had  written  a  Latin  Epic,  his  Africa.     He  was  followed  in 


40  .  SPENSER.  [chap. 

the  next  century  by  Baptista  Mantuanus  (1448-1516),  the 
"old  Mantuan,"  of  Holofernes  in  Love's  Labour's  Lost, 
whose  Latin  "Eo-Wues"  became  a  favourite  school-book  in 
England,  and  who  was  imitated  by  a  writer  who  passed  for 
a  poet  in  the  time  of  Henry  VIIL,  Alexander  Barclay.  In 
the  hands  of  the  Sicilians,  pastoral  poetry  may  have  been 
an  attempt  at  idealizing  country  life  almost  as  genuine  as 
some  of  Wordsworth's  poems;  but  it  soon  ceased  to  be 
that,  and  in  Alexandrian  hands  it  took  its  place  among  the 
recognized  departments  of  classic  and  literary  copying,  in 
which  Virgil  found  and  used  it.  But  a  further  step  had 
been  made  since  Virgil  had  adopted  it  as  an  instrument  of 
his  genius.  In  the  hands  of  Mantuan  and  Barclay  it  was 
a  vehicle  for  general  moralizing,  and  in  particular  for  se- 
vere satire  on  women  and  the  clergy.  And  Virgil,  though 
he  may  himself  speak  under  the  names  of  Tityrus  and  Me- 
nalcas,  and  lament  Julius  Caesar  as  Daphnis,  did  not  conceive 
of  the  Roman  world  as  peopled  by  flocks  and  sheep-cotes, 
or  its  emperors  and  chiefs,  its  poets,  senators  and  ladies, 
as  shepherds  and  shepherdesses,  of  higher  or  lower  degree. 
But  in  Spenser's  time,  partly  through  undue  reference  to 
what  was  supposed  to  be  Italian  taste,  partly  owing  to  the 
tardiness  of  national  culture,  and  because  the  poetic  im- 
pulses had  not  yet  gained  power  to  force  their  way  through 
the  embarrassment  and  awkwardness  which  accompany  re- 
viving art — the  w_Qxl4jvas  turned,  for  the  purposes  of  the 
poetry__of  civil  life,  into  a  pastoral  scene.  Poetical  inven- 
tion  was  held  to  consist  in  imagining  an  environment^  a  set 
of  outward  circumstances,  as  unlike  as  possible  to  the  fa- 
miliar realities  of  actual  life  an4-«raplovment,  in  which  the/ 
primary  affections  and  passions  had-their  play.  A  fantasj 
tic  basis,  varying  according  to  the  conventions  of  the  fash- 
ion, was  held  essential  for  the  representation  of  the  ideal. 


ii.]   THE  NEW  POET— THE  SHEPHERD'S  CALENDAR.   41 

Masquerade  and  hyperbole  were  the  stage  and  scenery  on 
which  the  poet's  sweetness,  or  tenderness,  or  strength  was 
to  be  put  forth.  The  masquerade,  when  his  subject  be- 
longed to  peace,  was  one  of  shepherds :  when  it  was  one 
of  war  and  adventure,  it  was  a  masquerade  of  knight-er- 
rantry. But  a  masquerade  was  necessary,  if  he  was  to  raise 
his  composition  above  the  vulgarities  and  trivialities  of  the 
street,  the  fireside,  the  camp,  or  even  the  court ;  if  he  was 
to  give  it  the  dignity,  the  ornament,  the  unexpected  re- 
sults, the  brightness  and  colour  which  belong  to  poetry. 
The  fashion  had  the  sanction  of  the  brilliant  author  of 
the  Arcadia,  the  "  Courtier,  Soldier,  Scholar,"  who  was  the 
"mould  of  form,"  and  whose  judgment  was  law  to  all 
men  of  letters  in  the  middle  years  of  Elizabeth,  the  all- 
accomplished  Philip  Sidney.  Spenser  submitted  to  this 
fashion  from  first  to  last.  When  he  ventured  on  a  consid- 
erable poetical  enterprise,  he  spoke  his  thoughts,  not  in  his 
own  name,  nor  as  his  contemporaries  ten  years  later  did, 
through  the  mouth  of  characters  in  a  tragic  or  comic  dra- 
ma, but  through  imaginary  rustics,  to  whom  every  one  else 
in  the  world  was  a  rustic,  and  lived  among  the  sheep-folds, 
with  a  background  of  downs  or  vales  or  fields,  and  the  open 
sky  above.  His  shepherds  and  goatherds  bear  the  homely 
names  of  native  English  clowns,  Diggon  Davie,  Willye,  am . 
Piers ;  Colin  Clout,  adopted  from  Skelton,  stands  for  Spen 
ser  himself;  Hobbinol,  for  Gabriel  Harvey;  Cuddie,  per 
haps  for  Edward  Kirke ;  names  revived  by  Ambrose  Phil- 
lips, and  laughed  at  by  Pope,  when  pastorals  again  came 
into  vogue  with  the  wits  of  Queen  Anne.1  With  them 
are  mingled  classical  ones  like  Menalcas,  French  ones  from 
Marot,  anagrams  like  Algrind  for  Grindal,  significant  ones 

1  In  the  Guardian,  No.  40.    Compare  Johnson's  Life  of  Ambrose 
Phillips. 


42  SPENSER.  [chap. 

like  Palinode,  plain  ones  like  Lettice,  and  romantic  ones 
like  Rosalind ;  and  no  incongruity  seems  to  be  found  in 
matching  a  beautiful  shepherdess  named  Dido  with  a  Great 
Shepherd  called  Lobbin,  or,  when  the  verse  requires  it, 
Lobb.  And  not  merely  the  speakers  in  the  dialogue  are 
shepherds ;  every  one  is  in  their  view  a  shepherd.  Chaucer 
is  the  "  god  of  shepherds,"  and  Orpheus  is  a — 

"  Shepherd  that  did  fetch  his  dame 
From  Plutoe's  baleful  bower  withouten  leave." 

The  "  fair  Elisa"  is  the  Queen  of  shepherds  all ;  her  great 
father  is  Pan,  the  shepherds'  god ;  and  Anne  Bolcyn  is 
Syrinx.  It  is  not  unnatural  that  when  the  clergy  are 
spoken  of,  as  they  are  in  three  of  the  poems,  the  figure 
should  be  kept  up.  But  it  is  curious  to  find  that  thef 
shepherds'  god,  the  great  Pan,  who  stands  in  one  connex-/ 
ion  for  Henry  VIII.,  should  in  another  represent  in  sobei/ 
earnest  the  Redeemer  and  Judge  of  the  world.1  I 

The  poems  framed  in  this  grotesque  setting  are  on  many 
themes,  and  of  various  merit,  and  probably  of  different 
dates.  Some  are  simply  amatory  effusions  of  an  ordinary 
character,  full  of  a  lover's  despair  and  complaint.  Three 
or  four  are  translations  or  imitations ;  translations  from 
Marot,  imitations  from  Theocritus,  Bion,  or  Virgil.  Two 
of  them  contain  fables  told  with  great  force  and  humour. 
The  story  of  the  Oak  and  the  Briar,  related,  as  his  friendly 
commentator  Kirke  says,  "  so  lively  and  so  feelingly,  as  if 
the  thing  were  set  forth  in  some  picture  before  our  eyes," 
for  the  warning  of  "  disdainful  younkers,"  is  a  first-fruit, 
and  promise  of  Spenser's  skill  in  vivid  narrative.  The  fa- 
ble of  the  Fox  and  the  Kid,  a  curious  illustration  of  the 
popular  discontent  at  the  negligence  of  the  clergy,  and  the 
1  Shepherd's  ( 'alendar,  May,  July,  and  September. 


ii.]   THE  NEW  POET— THE  SHEPHERD'S  CALENDAR.   43 

popular  suspicions  about  the  arts  of  Roman  intriguers,  is 
told  with  great  spirit,  and  with  mingled  humour  and  pa- 
thos. There  is,  of  course,  a  poem  in  honour  of  the  great 
queen,  who  was  the  goddess  of  their  idolatry  to  all  the 
wits  and  all  the  learned  of  England,  the  "  faire  Eliza,"  and 
a  compliment  is  paid  to  Leicester, 

"  The  worthy  whom  she  loveth  best, — 
That  first  the  White  Bear  to  the  stake  did  bring." 

Two  of  them  are  avowedly  burlesque  imitations  of  rus- 
tic dialect  and  banter,  carried  on  with  much  spirit.  One 
composition  is  a  funeral  tribute  to  some  unknown  lady ; 
another  is  a  complaint  of  the  neglect  of  poets  by  the  great. 
In  three  of  the  ^Eglogues  he  comes  on  a  more  serious 
theme ;  they  are  vigorous  satires  on  the  loose  living  and 
greediness  of  clergy  forgetful  of  their  charge,  with  strong 
invectives  against  foreign  corruption  and  against  the  wiles 
of  the  wolves  and  foxes  of  Rome,  with  frequent  allusions 
to  passing  incidents  in  the  guerilla  war  with  the  seminary 
priests,  and  with  a  warm  eulogy  on  the  faithfulness  and 
wisdom  of  Archbishop  Grindal ;  whose  name  is  disguised 
as  old  Algrind,  and  with  whom  in  his  disgrace  the  poet  is 
not  afraid  to  confess  deep  sympathy.  They  are,  in  a  po- 
etical form,  part  of  that  manifold  and  varied  system  of 
Puritan  aggression  on  the  established  ecclesiastical  order 
of  England,  which  went  through  the  whole  scale  from  the 
"Admonition  to  Parliament,"  and  the  lectures  of  Cart- 
wright  and  Travers,  to  the  libels  of  Martin  Mar-prelate  :  a 
system  of  attack  which,  with  all  its  injustice  and  violence, 
and  with  all  its  mischievous  purposes,  found  but  too  much 
justification  in  the  inefficiency  and  corruption  of  many 
both  of  the  bishops  and  clergy,  and  in  the  rapacious  and 
selfish  policy  of  the  government,  forced  to  starve  and  crip- 


44  SPENSEE.  [chap. 

pie  the  public  service,  while  great  men  and  favourites  built 
up  their  fortunes  out  of  the  prodigal  indulgence  of  the 
Queen. 

The  collection  of  poems  is  thus  a  very  miscellaneous 
one,  and  cannot  be  said  to  be  in  its  subjects  inviting.  The 
poet's  system  of  composition,  also,  has  the  disadvantage  of 
being  to  a  great  degree  unreal,  forced,  and  unnatural.  De- 
parting from  the  precedent  of  Virgil  and  the  Italians,  but 
perhaps  copying  the  artificial  Doric  of  the  Alexandrians, 
he  professes  to  make  his  language  and  style  suitable  to  the 
"  ragged  and  rustical "  rudeness  of  the  shepherds  whom  he 
brings  on  the  scene,  by  making  it  both  archaic  and  pro- 
vincial. He  found  in  Chaucer  a  store  of  forms  and  words 
sufficiently  well  known  to  be  with  a  little  help  intelligible, 
and  sufficiently  out  of  common  use  to  give  the  character 
of  antiquity  to  a  poetry  which  employed  them.  And  from 
his  sojourn  in  the  North  he  is  said  to  have  imported  a  cer- 
tain number  of  local  peculiarities  which  would  seem  unfa- 
miliar and  harsh  in  the  South.  His  editor's  apology  for 
this  use  of  "ancient  solemn  words,"  as  both  proper  and 
as  ornamental,  is  worth  quoting ;  it  is  an  early  instance  of 
what  is  supposed  to  be  not  }'et  common,  a  sense  of  pleas- 
ure in  that  wildness  which  we  call  picturesque. 

"  And  first  for  the  words  to  speak :  I  grant  they  be  something 
hard,  and  of  most  men  unused :  yet  English,  and  also  used  of  most 
excellent  Authors  and  most  famous  Poets.  In  whom,  when  as  this 
our  Poet  hath  been  much  travelled  and  throughly  read,  how  could 
it  be  (as  that  worthy  Orator  said),  but  that  '  walking  in  the  sun, 
although  for  other  cause  he  walked,  yet  needs  he  mought  be  sun- 
burnt ;'  and  having  the  sound  of  those  ancient  poets  still  ringing  in 
his  cars,  he  mought  needs,  in  singing,  hit  out  some  of  their  tunes. 
But  whether  he  uscth  them  by  such  casualty  and  custom,  or  of  set 
purpose  and  choice,  as  thinking  them  fittest  for  such  rustical  rude- 
ness of  shepherds,  either  for  that  their  rough  sound  would  make  his 


STATE  NORMAL  SCHBBl, 

ii.]   THE  NEW  POET— THE  SHEPHERD'S  CALENDAR.   45 

rymes  more  ragged  and  rustical,  or  else  because  such  old  and  obso- 
lete words  are  most  used  of  country  folks,  sure  I  think,  and  I  think 
not  amiss,  that  they  bring  great  grace,  and,  as  one  would  say,  author- 
ity, to  the  verse.  .  .  .  Yet  neither  everywhere  must  old  words  be 
stuffed  in,  nor  the  common  Dialect  and  manner  of  speaking  so  cor- 
rupted thereby,  that,  as  in  old  buildings,  it  seem  disorderly  and  ruin- 
ous. But  as  in  most  exquisite  pictures  they  use  to  blaze  and  por- 
trait not  only  the  dainty  lineaments  of  beauty,  but  also  round  about 
it  to  shadow  the  rude  thickets  and  craggy  cliffs,  that  by  the  base- 
ness of  such  parts,  more  excellency  may  accrue  to  the  principal — for 
ofttimes  we  find  ourselves  I  know  not  how,  singularly  delighted  with 
the  show  of  such  natural  rudeness,  and  take  great  pleasure  in  that 
disorderly  order: — even  so  do  these  rough  and  harsh  terms  enlu- 
mine,  and  make  more  clearly  to  appear,  the  brightness  of  brave  and 
glorious  words.  So  oftentimes  a  discord  in  music  maketh  a  comely 
concordance." 

But  when  allowance  is  made  for  an  eclectic  and  some- 
times pedantic  phraseology,  and  for  mannerisms  to  which 
the  fashion  of  the  age  tempted  him,  such  as  the  extrava- 
gant use  of  alliteration,  or,  as  they  called  it, "  hunting  the 
letter,"  the  Shepherd's  Calendar  is,  for  its  time,  of  great 
interest. 

Spenser's  force,  and  sustained  poetical  power,  and  singu- 
larly musical  ear  are  conspicuous  in  this  first  essay  of  his 
genius.  In  the  poets  before  him  of  this  century,  fragments 
and  stanzas,  and  perhaps  single  pieces  might  be  found, 
which  might  be  compared  with  his  work.  Fugitive  pieces, 
chiefly  amatory,  meet  us  of  real  sprightliness,  or  grace,  or 
tenderness.  The  stanzas  which  Sackville,  afterwards  Lord 
Buckhurst,  contributed  to  the  collection  called  the  Mirror 
of  Magistrates*  are  marked  with  a  pathetic  majesty,  a  gen- 
uine sympathy  for  the  precariousness  of  greatness,  which 
seem  a  prelude  to  the  Elizabethan  drama.    But  these  frag- 

1  First  published  in  1559.  It  was  a  popular  book,  and  was  often 
re-edited. 


46  SPENSER.  [chap. 

ments  were  mostly  felicitous  efforts,  which  soon  passed  on 
into  the  ungainly,  the  uncouth,  the  obscure,  or  the  gro- 
tesque.  But  in  the  Shepherd's  Calendar  we  have  for  the 
first  time  in  the  century,  the  swing,  the  command,  the  va- 
ried resources  of  the  real  poet,  who  is  not  driven  by  fail- 
ing language  or  thought  into  frigid  or  tumid  absurdities. 
Spenser  is  master  over  himself  and  his  instrument  even 
when  he  uses  it  in  a  way  which  offends  our  taste.  There 
are  passages  in  the  Shejrfierd's  Calendar  of  poetical  elo- 
quence, of  refined  vigour,  and  of  musical  and  imaginative 
sweetness,  such  as  the  English  language  had  never  attained 
to  since  the  days  of  him  who  was  to  the  age  of  Spenser 
what  Shakespere  and  Milton  are  to  ours,  the  pattern  and 
fount  of  poetry,  Chaucer.  Dryden  is  not  afraid  to  class 
Spenser  with  Theocritus  and  Virgil,  and  to  write  that  the 
Shepherd's  Calendar  is  not  to  be  matched  in  any  lan- 
guage.1 And  this  was  at  once  recognized.  The  author- 
ship of  it,  as  has  been  said,  was  not  formally  acknowledged. 
Indeed,  Mr.  Collier  remarks  that  seven  years  after  its  pub- 
lication, and  after  it  had  gone  through  three  or  four  sepa- 
rate editions,  it  was  praised  by  a  contemporary  poet,  George 
Whetstone,  himself  a  friend  of  Spenser's,  as  the  "  reputed 
work  of  Sir  Philip  Sidney."  But  if  it  was  officially  a  se- 
cret, it  was  an  open  secret,  known  to  every  one  who  cared 
to  be  well  informed.  It  is  possible  that  the  free  language 
used  in  it  about  ecclesiastical  abuses  was  too  much  in  sym- 
pathy with  the  growing  fierceness  and  insolence  of  Puri- 
tan invective  to  be  safely  used  by  a  poet  who  gave  his 
name :  and  one  of  the  reasons  assigned  for  Burghley's  dis- 
like to  Spenser  is  the  praise  bestowed  in  the  Shepherd's 
Calendar  on  Archbishop  Grindal,  then  in  deep  disgrace 
for  resisting  the  suppression  of  the  puritan  prophesyings. 
1  Dedication  to  Virgil. 


ii.]   THE  NEW  POET— THE  SHEPHERD'S  CALENDAR.   47 

But  anonymous  as  it  was,  it  had  been  placed  under  Sid- 
ney's protection ;  and  it  was  at  once  warmly  welcomed. 
It  is  not  often  that  in  those  remote  days  we  get  evidence 
of  the  immediate  effect  of  a  book;  but  we  have  this  evi- 
dence in  Spenser's  case.  In  this  year,  probably,  after  it 
was  published,  we  find  it  spoken  of  by  Philip  Sidney,  not 
without  discriminating  criticism,  but  as  one  of  the  few  re- 
cent examples  of  poetry  worthy  to  be  named  after  Chaucer. 

"  I  account  the  Mirror  of  Magistrates  meetly  furnished  of  beauti- 
ful parts ;  and  in  the  Earl  of  Surrey's  Lyrics  many  things  tasting  of 
birth,  and  worthy  of  a  noble  mind.  The  SliephercVs  Calendar  hath 
much  poetry  in  his  Eglogues :  indeed  worthy  the  reading  if  I  be  not 
deceived.  That  same  framing  of  his  style  in  an  old  rustic  language 
I  dare  not  allow,  sith  neither  Theocritus  in  Greek,  Virgil  in  Latin, 
nor  Sanazar  in  Italian,  did  affect  it.  Besides  these  do  I  not  remem- 
ber to  have  seen  but  few  (to  speak  boldly)  printed  that  have  poetical 
sinews  in  them." 

Sidney's  patronage  of  the  writer  and  general  approval 
of  the  work  doubtless  had  something  to  do  with  making 
Spenser's  name  known :  but  he  at  once  takes  a  place  in 
contemporary  judgment  which  no  one  else  takes,  till  the 
next  decade  of  the  century.  In  1586,  Webbe  published 
his  Discouse  of  English  Poetrie.  In  this,  the  author  of 
the  Shepherd's  Calendar  is  spoken  of  by  the  name  given 

him  by  its  Editor,  E.  K ,  as  the  "  new  poet,"  just  as, 

earlier  in  the  century,  the  Orlando  Furioso  was  styled  the 
"  nuova  poesia ;"  and  his  work  is  copiously  used  to  supply 
examples  and  illustrations  of  the  critic's  rules  and  observa- 
tions. Webbe's  review  of  existing  poetry  was  the  most 
comprehensive  yet  attempted :  but  the  place  which  he 
gives  to  the  new  poet,  whose  name  was  in  men's  mouths, 
thongh,  like  the  author  of  In  Memoriam,  he  had  not  placed 
it  on  the  title-page,  was  one  quite  apart. 


48  SPENSER.  [chap. 

"  This  place  [to  wear  the  Laurel]  have  I  purposely  reserved  for 
one,  who,  if  not  only,  yet  in  my  judgment  principally,  deserveth  the 
title  of  the  Tightest  English  poet  that  ever  I  read :  that  is,  the  author 
of  the  Shepherd's  Calendar,  intituled  to  the  worthy  Gentleman  Master 
Philip  Sidney,  whether  it  was  Master  Sp.  or  what  rare  scholar  in  Pem- 
broke Hall  soever,  because  himself  and  his  friends,  for  what  respect 
I  know  not,  would  not  reveal  it,  I  force  not  greatly  to  set  down.  Sor- 
ry I  am  that  I  cannot  find  none  other  with  whom  I  might  couple  him 
in  this  catalogue  in  his  rare  gift  of  poetry :  although  one  there  is, 
though  now  long  since  seriously  occupied  in  graver  studies,  Master 
Gabriel  Harvey,  yet  as  he  was  once  his  most  special  friend  and  fel- 
low poet,  so  because  he  hath  taken  such  pains  not  only  in  his  Latin 
poetry  .  .  .  but  also  to  reform  our  English  verse  .  .  .  therefore  will 
I  adventure  to  set  them  together  as  two  of  the  rarest  wits  and  learn- 
edest  masters  of  poetry  in  England." 

He  even  ventured  to  compare  him  favourably  with 
Virgil. 

"But  now  yet  at  the  last  hath  England  hatched  up  one  poet  of 
this  sort,  in  my  conscience  comparable  with  the  best  in  any  respect : 
even  Master  Sp.,  author  of  the  Shepherd's  Calendar,  whose  travail  in 
that  piece  of  English  poetry  I  think  verily  is  so  commendable,  as 
none  of  equal  judgment  can  yield  him  less  praise  for  his  excellent 
skill  and  skilful  excellency  showed  forth  in  the  same  than  they  would 
to  either  Theocritus  or  Virgil,  whom  in  mine  opinion,  if  the  coarse- 
ness of  our  speech  (I  mean  the  course  of  custom  which  he  would  not 
infringe),  had  been  no  more  let  unto  him  than  their  pure  native 
tongues  were  unto  them,  he  would  have,  if  it  might  be,  surpassed 
them." 

The  courtly  author  of  the  Arte  of  English  Poesie,  1589, 
commonly  cited  as  G.  Puttcnham,  classes  him  with  Sidney. 
And  from  this  time  his  name  occurs  in  every  enumeration 
of  English  poetical  writers,  till  he  appears,  more  than  justi- 
fying this  early  appreciation  of  his  genius,  as  Chaucer's  not 
unworthy  successor,  in  the  Faerie  Quccne.  Afterwards, 
as  other  successful  poetry  was  written,  and  the  standards 


n.]  THE  NEW  POET— THE  SHEPHERD'S  CALENDAR.   49 

of  taste  were  multiplied,  this  first  enthusiastic  reception 
cooled  down.  In  James  the  First's  time,  Spenser's  use 
of  "  old  outworn  words "  is  criticised  as  being  no  more 
"  practical  English  "  than  Chaucer  or  Skelton :  it  is  not 
"courtly"  enough.1  The  success  of  the  Shepherd's  Cal- 
endar had  also,  apparently,  substantial  results,  which  some 
of  his  friends  thought  of  with  envy.  They  believed  that 
it  secured  him  high  patronage,  and  opened  to  him  a  way 
to  fortune.  Poor  Gabriel  Harvey,  writing  in  the  year  in 
which  the  Shepherd's  Calendar  came  out,  contrasts  his  own 
less  favoured  lot,  and  his  ill -repaid  poetical  efforts,  with 
Colin  Clout's  good  luck. 

"  But  ever  and  ever,  methinks,  your  great  Catoes,  Ecquid  erit  pretii, 
and  our  little  Catoes,  Res  age  quce  prosunt,  make  such  a  buzzing  and 
ringing  in  my  head,  that  I  have  little  joy  to  animate  and  encourage 
either  you  or  him  to  go  forward,  unless  ye  might  make  account  of 
some  certain  ordinary  wages,  or  at  the  least  wise  have  your  meat  and 
drink  for  your  day's  works.  As  for  myself,  howsoever  I  have  toyed 
and  trifled  heretofore,  I  am  now  taught,  and  I  trust  I  shall  shortly 
learn  (no  remedy,  I  must  of  mere  necessity  give  you  over  in  the  plain 
field),  to  employ  my  travail  and  time  wholly  or  chiefly  on  those  stud- 
ies and  practices  that  carry,  as  they  say,  meat  in  their  mouth,  having 
evermore  their  eye  upon  the  Title,  De  pane  lucrando,  and  their  hand 
upon  their  halfpenny.  For  I  pray  now  what  saith  Mr.  Cuddie,  alias 
you  know  who,  in  the  tenth  ^Eglogue  of  the  aforesaid  famous  new 

Calendar. 

3k  st  it  ¥&  5t  jk  ¥k 

" '  The  dapper  ditties,  that  I  wont  devise 

To  feed  youths'  fancy  and  the  flocking  fry, 

Delighten  much  :  what  I  the  best  for  thy  ? 
They  han  the  pleasure,  I  a  sclender  prize, 

I  beat  the  bush,  the  birds  to  them  do  fly. 
What  good  thereof  to  Cuddie  can  arise  ?' 

"  But  Master  Colin  Clout  is  not  everybody,  and  albeit  his  old  com- 

1  Bolton  in  Haslewood,  ii.  249. 
3* 


50  SPENSER.  [chap.  ii. 

panions,  Master  Caddie  and  Master  Hobinoll,  be  as  little  beholding  to 
their  mistress  poetry  as  ever  you  wist :  yet  he,  peradventure,  by  the 
means  of  her  special  favour,  and  some  personal  privilege,  may  haply 
live  by  Dying  Pelicans,  and  purchase  great  lands  and  lordships  with 
the  money  which  his  Calendar  and  Dreams  have,  and  will  afford 
him." 


CHAPTER  in. 

SPENSER    IN    IRELAND. 
[1580.] 

In  the  first  week  of  October,  1579,  Spenser  was  at  Leices- 
ter House,  expecting  "  next  week "  to  be  despatched  on 
Leicester's  service  to  France.  Whether  he  was  sent  or 
not,  we  do  not  know.  Gabriel  Harvey,  writing  at  the  end 
of  the  month,  wagers  that  "  for  all  his  saying,  he  will  not 
be  gone  over  sea,  neither  this  week  nor  the  next."  In 
one  of  the  ^Eglogues  (Septembei*)  there  are  some  lines 
which  suggest,  but  do  not  necessarily  imply,  the  experi- 
ence of  an  eye-witness  of  the  state  of  religion  in  a  Roman 
Catholic  country.  But  we  can  have  nothing  but  con- 
jecure  whether  at  this  time  or  any  other  Spenser  was  on 
the  Continent.  The  Shepherd's  Calendar  was  entered  at 
Stationers'  Hall,  December  5, 1579.  In  April,  1580,  as  we 
know  from  one  of  his  letters  to  Harvey,  he  was  at  West- 
minster. He  speaks  of  the  Shepherd's  Calendar  as  pub- 
lished ;  he  is  contemplating  the  publication  of  other 
pieces,  and  then  "  he  will  in  hand  forthwith  with  his  Faerie 
Queene"  of  which  he  had  sent  Harvey  a  specimen.  He 
speaks  especially  of  his  Dreams  as  a  considerable  work. 

"  I  take  best  my  Dreams  should  come  forth  alone,  being  grown 
by  means  of  the  Gloss  (running  continually  in  manner  of  a  Para- 
phrase) full  as  great  as  my  Calendar.     Therein  be  some  things  ex- 


52  SPENSER.  [chap. 

cellently,  and  many  things  wittily  discoursed  of  E.  K.,  and  the  pictures 
so  singularly  set  forth  and  portrayed,  as  if  Michael  Angelo  were 
there,  he  could  (I  think)  nor  amend  the  best,  nor  reprehend  the 
worst,     I  know  you  would  like  them  passing  well." 

It  is  remarkable  that  of  a  book  so  spoken  of,  as  of  the 
Nine  Comedies,  not  a  trace,  as  far  as  appears,  is  to  be 
found.  He  goes  on  to  speak  with  much  satisfaction  of 
another  composition,  which  was  probably  incorporated, 
like  the  Epithalamion  Thames-is,  in  his  later  work. 

"  Of  my  Stemmata  Dudleiana,  and  specially  of  the  sundry  Apostro- 
phes therein,  addressed  you  know  to  whom,  much  more  advisement 
he  had,  than  so  lightly  to  send  them  abroad :  now  list,  trust  me 
(though  I  do  never  very  well)  yet,  in  mine  own  fancy,  I  never  did  bet- 
ter.    Veniutarnen  te  sequor  solum:  nunquam  vero  assequar." 

He  is  plainly  not  dissatisfied  with  his  success,  and  is 
looking  forward  to  more.  But  no  one  in  those  days  could 
live  by  poetry.  Even  scholars,  in  spite  of  university  en- 
dowments, did  not  hope  to  live  by  their  scholarship ;  and 
the  poet  or  man  of  letters  only  trusted  that  his  work,  by 
attracting  the  favour  of  the  great,  might  open  to  him  the 
door  of  advancement.  Spenser  was  probably  expecting 
to  push  his  fortunes  in  some  public  employment  under 
the  patronage  of  two  such  powerful  favourites  as  Sidney 
and  his  uncle  Leicester.  Spenser's  heart  was  set  on  poe- 
try: but  what  leisure  he  might  have  for  it  would  depend 
on  the  course  his  life  might  take.  To  have  huno*  on  Sid- 
ney's  protection,  or  gone  with  him  as  his  secretary  to  the 
wars,  to  have  been  employed  at  home  or  abroad  in  Leices- 
ter's intrigues,  to  have  stayed  in  London  filling  by  Leices- 
ter's favour  some  government  office,  to  have  had  his  hab- 
its moulded  and  his  thoughts  affected  by  the  brilliant  and 
unscrupulous  society  of  the  court,  or  by  the  powerful  and 


in.]  SPENSER  IN  IRELAND.  53 

daring  minds  whicL.  were  fast  thronging  the  political  and 
literary  scene  —  any  of  these  contingencies  might  have 
given  his  poetical  faculty  a  different  direction  ;  nay,  might 
have  even  abridged  its  exercise  or  suppressed  it.  But  his 
life  was  otherwise  ordered.  A  new  opening  presented 
itself.  He  had,  and  he  accepted,  the  chance  of  making 
his  fortune  another  way.  And  to  his  new  manner  of  life, 
with  its  peculiar  conditions,  may  be  ascribed,  not,  indeed, 
the  original  idea  of  that  which  was  to  be  his  great  work, 
but  the  circumstances  under  which  the  work  was  carried 
out,  and  which  not  merely  coloured  it,  but  gave  it  some  of 
its  special  and  characteristic  features. 

That  which  turned  the  course  of  his  career,  and  exer- 
cised a  decisive  influence,  certainly  on  its  events  and  fate, 
probably  also  on  the  turn  of  his  thoughts  and  the  shape 
and  moulding  of  his  work,  was  his  migration  to  Ireland, 
and  his  settlement  there  for  the  greater  part  of  the  re- 
maining eighteen  years  of  his  life.  "We  know  little  more 
than  the  main  facts  of  this  change  from  the  court  and  the 
growing  intellectual  activity  of  England,  to  the  fierce  and 
narrow  interests  of  a  cruel  and  unsuccessful  struggle  for 
colonization,  in  a  country  which  was  to  England  much 
what  Algeria  was  to  France  some  thirty  years  ago.  Ire- 
land, always  unquiet,  had  become  a  serious  danger  to 
Elizabeth's  Government.  It  was  its  "bleeding  ulcer." 
Lord  Essex's  great  colonizing  scheme,  with  his  unscrupu- 
lous severity,  had  failed.  Sir  Henry  Sidney,  wise,  firm, 
and  wishing  to  be  just,  had  tried  his  hand  as  Deputy  for 
the  third  time  in  the  thankless  charge  of  keeping  order; 
he,  too,  after  a  short  gleam  of  peace,  had  failed  also.  For 
two  years  Ireland  had  been  left  to  the  local  administra- 
tion, totally  unable  to  heal  its  wounds,  or  cope  with  its 
disorders.     And  now,  the  kingdom  threatened  to  becomo 


54  SPENSER.  [chap. 

a  vantage-ground  to  the  foreign  enemy.  In  November, 
1579,  the  Government  turned  their  eyes  on  Arthur,  Lord 
Grey  of  Wilton,  a  man  of  high  character,  and  a  soldier 
of  distinction.  He,  or  they,  seem  to  have  hesitated ;  or, 
rather,  the  hesitation  was  on  both  sides.  He  was  not 
satisfied  with  many  things  in  the  policy  of  the  Queen  in 
England :  his  discontent  had  led  him,  strong  Protestant 
as  he  was,  to  coquet  with  Norfolk  and  the  partisans  of 
Mary  Queen  of  Scots,  when  England  was  threatened  with 
a  French  marriage  ten  years  before.  His  name  stands 
among  the  forty  nobles  on  whom  Mary's  friends  counted.1 
And  on  the  other  hand,  Elizabeth  did  not  like  him  or 
trust  him.  For  some  time  she  refused  to  employ  him. 
At  length,  in  the  summer  of  1580,  he  was  appointed  to 
fill  that  great  place  which  had  wrecked  the  reputation  and 
broken  the  hearts  of  a  succession  of  able  and  high-spirited 
servants  of  the  English  Crown,  the  place  of  Lord-Deputy 
in  Ireland.  He  was  a  man  who  was  interested  in  the  lit- 
erary enterprise  of  the  time.  In  the  midst  of  his  public 
employment  in  Holland,  he  had  been  the  friend  and  patron 
of  George  Gascoigne,  who  left  a  high  reputation,  for  those 
days,  as  poet,  wit,  satirist,  and  critic.  Lord  Grey  now  took 
Spenser,  the  "  new  poet,"  the  friend  of  Philip  Sidney,  to 
Ireland  as  his  Secretary. 

Spenser  was  not  the  only  scholar  and  poet  who  about 
this  time  found  public  employment  in  Ireland.  Names 
which  appear  in  literary  records,  such  as  Warton's  History 
of  English  Poetry,  poets  like  Barnaby  Googe  and  Ludo- 
vic  Bryskett,  reappear  as  despatch-writers  or  agents  in  the 
Irish  State  Papers.  But  one  man  came  over  to  Ireland 
about  the  same  time  as  Spenser,  whose  fortunes  were  a 
contrast  to  his.     Geoffrey  Fenton  was  one  of  the  nuincr- 

1  Froudc,  x.  158. 


ni.]  SPENSER  IN  IRELAND.  55 

ous  translators  of  the  time.  He  had  dedicated  Tragical 
Tales  from  the  French  and  Italian  to  Lady  Mary  Sidney, 
Guevara's  Epistles  from  the  Spanish  to  Lady  Oxford,  and 
a  translation  of  Guicciardini  to  the  Queen.  About  this 
time,  he  was  recommended  by  his  brother  to  Walsingham 
for  foreign  service ;  he  was  soon  after  in  Ireland :  and  in 
the  summer  of  1580  he  was  made  Secretary  to  the  Gov- 
ernment. He  shortly  became  one  of  the  most  important 
persons  in  the  Irish  administration.  He  corresponded 
confidentially  and  continually  with  Burghley  and  Walsing- 
ham. He  had  his  eye  on  the  proceedings  of  Deputies  and 
Presidents,  and  reported  freely  their  misdoings  or  their 
unpopularity.  His  letters  form  a  considerable  part  of  the 
Irish  Papers.  He  became  a  powerful  and  successful  pub- 
lic servant.  He  became  Sir  Geoffrey  Fenton  ;  he  kept  his 
high  place  for  his  life ;  he  obtained  grants  and  lands ;  and 
he  was  commemorated  as  a  great  personage  in  a  pompous 
monument  in  St.  Patrick's  Cathedral.  This  kind  of  suc- 
cess was  not  to  be  Spenser's. 

Lord  Grey  of  Wilton  was  a  man  in  whom  his  friends 
saw  a  high  and  heroic  spirit.  He  was  a  statesman  in 
whose  motives  and  actions  his  religion  had  a  dominant 
influence:  and  his  religion — he  is  called  by  the  vague 
name  of  Puritan — was  one  which  combined  a  strong  and 
doubtless  genuine  zeal  for  the  truth  of  Christian  doctrine 
and  for  purity  of  morals,  with  the  deepest  and  deadliest 
hatred  of  what  he  held  to  be  their  natural  enemy,  the 
Antichrist  of  Rome.  The  "  good  Lord  Grey,"  he  was, 
if  we  believe  his  secretary,  writing  many  years  after  this 
time,  and  when  he  was  dead,  "  most  gentle,  affable,  loving, 
and  temperate ;  always  known  to  be  a  most  just,  sincere, 
godly,  and  right  noble  man,  far  from  sternness,  far  from 
unrighteousness."     But   the  infelicity  of  his  times  boro 


56  SPENSER.  [chap. 

hardly  upon  him,  and  Spenser  admits,  what  is  known 
otherwise,  that  he  left  a  terrible  name  behind  him.  He 
was  certainly  a  man  of  severe  and  unshrinking  sense  of 
duty,  and  like  many  great  Englishmen  of  the  time,  so  res- 
olute in  carrying  it  out  to  the  end,  that  it  reached,  when 
he  thought  in  necessary,  to  the  point  of  ferocity.  Nat- 
urally, he  had  enemies,  who  did  not  spare  his  fame ;  and 
Spenser,  who  came  to  admire  and  reverence  him,  had  to 
lament  deeply  that  "  that  good  lord  was  blotted  with  the 
name  of  a  bloody  man,"  one  Avho  "  regarded  not  the  life 
of  the  queen's  subjects  no  more  than  dogs,  and  had  wasted 
and  consumed  all,  so  as  now  she  had  nothing  almost  left, 
but  to  reign  in  their  ashes." 

Lord  Grey  was  sent  over  at  a  moment  of  the  utmost 
confusion  and  danger.  In  July,  1579,  Drury  wrote  to 
Burghley  to  stand  firmly  to  the  helm,  for  "  that  a  great 
storm  was  at  hand."  The  South  of  Ireland  was  in  fierce 
rebellion,  under  the  Earl  of  Desmond  and  Dr.  Nicolas 
Sanders,  who  was  acting  under  the  commission  of  the 
Pope,  and  promising  the  assistance  of  the  King  of  Spain  ; 
and  a  band  of  Spanish  and  Italian  adventurers,  unauthor- 
ized, but  not  uncountenanced  by  their  Government,  like 
Drake  in  the  Indies,  had  landed  with  arms  and  stores,  and 
had  fortified  a  port  at  Smerwick,  on  the  south-western 
coast  of  Kerry.  The  North  was  deep  in  treason,  restless, 
and  threatening  to  strike.  Hound  Dublin  itself,  the  great 
Irish  Lords  of  the  Pale,  under  Lord  Baltinglass,  in  the 
summer  of  1580,  had  broken  into  open  insurrection,  and 
were  holding  out  a  hand  to  the  rebels  of  the  South.  The 
English  garrison,  indeed,  small  as  they  were,  could  not 
only  hold  their  own  against  the  ill -armed  and  undis- 
ciplined Irish  bands,  but  could  inflict  terrible  chastisement 
on  the  insurgents.     The  native  feuds  were  turned  to  ac- 


in.]  SPENSER  IN  IRELAND.  51 

count ;  Butlers  were  set  to  destroy  their  natural  enemies, 
the  Geraldines;  and  the  Earl  of  Ormond,  their  head,  was 
appointed  General  in  Munster,  to  execute  English  ven- 
geance and  his  own  on  the  lands  and  people  of  his  rival 
Desmond.  But  the  Eno-fish  chiefs  were  not  strong;  enough 
to  put  down  the  revolt.  "  The  conspiracy  throughout  Ire- 
land," wrote  Lord  Grey,  "is  so  general,  that  without  a 
main  force  it  will  not  be  appeased.  There  are  cold  service 
and  unsound  dealing  generally."  On  the  12th  of  August, 
1580,  Lord  Grey  landed,  amid  a  universal  wreck  of  order, 
of  law,  of  mercy,  of  industry ;  and  among  his  counsellors 
and  subordinates,  the  only  remedy  thought  of  was  that  of 
remorseless  and  increasing  severity. 

It  can  hardly  be  doubted  that  Spenser  must  have  come 
over  with  him.  It  is  likely  that  where  he  went  his  Sec- 
retary would  accompany  him.  And  if  so,  Spenser  must 
soon  have  become  acquainted  with  some  of  the  scenes  and 
necessities  of  Irish  life.  Within  three  weeks  after  Lord 
Grey's  landing,  he  and  those  with  him  were  present  at  the 
disaster  of  Glenmalure,  a  rocky  defile  near  AVicklow,  where 
the  rebels  enticed  the  English  captains  into  a  position  in 
which  an  ambuscade  had  been  prepared,  after  the  manner 
of  Red  Indians  in  the  last  century,  and  of  South  African 
savages  now,  and  where,  in  spite  of  Lord  Grey's  courage, 
"which  could  not  have  been  bettered  by  Hercules," a  bloody 
defeat  was  inflicted  on  his  troops,  and  a  number  of  dis- 
tinguished officers  were  cut  off.  But  Spenser  was  soon  to 
see  a  still  more  terrible  example  of  this  ruthless  warfare. 
It  was  necessary,  above  all  things,  to  destroy  the  Spanish 
fort  at  Smerwick,  in  order  to  prevent  the  rebellion  being- 
fed  from  abroad:  and  in  November,  1580,  Lord  Grey  in 
person  undertook  the  work.  The  incidents  of  this  tragedy 
have  been  fully  recorded,  and  they  formed  at  the  time  a 


58  SPENSER.  [chap. 

heavy  charge  against  Lord  Grey's  humanity,  and  even  his 
honour.  In  this  instance  Spenser  must  almost  certainly 
have  been  on  the  spot.  Years  afterwards,  in  his  View  of 
the  State  of  Ireland,  he  describes  and  vindicates  Lord 
Grey's  proceedings ;  and  he  does  so,  "  being,"  as  he  writes, 
"as  near  them  as  any."  And  we  have  Lord  Grey's  own 
despatch  to  Queen  Elizabeth,  containing  a  full  report  of 
the  tragical  business.  We  have  no  means  of  knowing  how 
Lord  Grey  employed  Spenser,  or  whether  he  composed  his 
own  despatches.  But  from  Spenser's  position,  the  Secre- 
tary, if  he  had  not  some  hand  in  the  following  vivid  and 
forcible  account  of  the  taking  of  Smerwick,1  must  prob- 
ably have  been  cognizant  of  it ;  though  there  are  some 
slight  differences  in  the  despatch,  and  in  the  account  which 
Spenser  himself  wrote  afterwards  in  his  pamphlet  on  Irish 
Affairs. 

After  describing  the  proposal  of  the  garrison  for  a  par- 
ley, Lord  Grey  proceeds — 

"  There  was  presently  sent  unto  me  one  Alexandre,  their  camp 
master;  he  told  me  that  certain  Spaniards  and  Italians  were  there 
arrived  upon  fair  speeches  and  great  promises,  which  altogether  vain 
and  false  they  found ;  and  that  it  was  no  part  of  their  intent  to 
molest  or  take  any  government  from  your  Majesty ;  for  proof,  that 
they  were  ready  to  depart  as  they  came  and  deliver  into  my  hands 
the  fort.  Mine  answer  was,  that  for  that  I  perceived  their  people  to 
stand  of  two  nations,  Italian  and  Spanish,  I  would  give  no  answer 
unless  a  Spaniard  was  likewise  by.  He  presently  went  and  returned 
with  a  Spanish  captain.  I  then  told  the  Spaniard  that  I  knew  their 
nation  to  have  an  absolute  prince,  one  that  was  in  good  league  and 
amity  with  your  Majesty,  which  made  me  to  marvell  that  any  of  his 
people  should  be  found  associate  with  them  that  went  about  to  niain- 

1  Calendar  of  State  Papers,  Ireland,  1574— 15S5.  Mr.  II.  C.  Ham- 
ilton's Pref.  p.  lxxi.-lxxiii.     Nov.  12,  1580. 


in.]  SPENSER  IN  IRELAND.  59 

tain  rebels  against  you.  .  .  .  And  taking  it  that  it  could  not  be  his 
king's  will,  I  was  to  know  by  whom  and  for  what  cause  they  were 
sent.  His  reply  was  that  the  king  had  not  sent  them,  but  that  one 
John  Martinez  de  Ricaldi,  Governor  for  the  king  at  Bilboa,  had  will- 
ed him  to  levy  a  band  and  repair  with  it  to  St.  Andrews  (Santander), 
and  there  to  be  directed  by  this  their  colonel  here,  whom  he  follow- 
ed as  a  blind  man,  not  knowing  whither.  The  other  avouched  that 
they  were  all  sent  by  the  Pope  for  the  defence  of  the  Catholka  fede. 
My  answer  was,  that  I  would  not  greatly  have  marvelled  if  men  be- 
ing commanded  by  natural  and  absolute  princes  did  sometimes  take 
in  hand  wrong  actions ;  but  that  men,  and  that  of  account  as  some 
of  them  made  show  of,  should  be  carried  into  unjust,  desperate,  and 
wicked  actions,  by  one  that  neither  from  God  or  man  could  claim 
any  princely  power  or  empire,  but  (was)  indeed  a  detestable  shave- 
ling, the  right  Antichrist  and  general  ambitious  tyrant  over  all  right 
principalities,  and  patron  of  the  Diabolicafedc — this  I  could  not  but 
greatly  rest  in  wonder.  Their  fault  therefore  far  to  be  aggravated 
by  the  vileness  of  their  commander ;  and  that  at  my  hands  no  con- 
dition or  composition  they  were  to  expect,  other  than  they  should 
render  me  the  fort,  and  yield  their  selves  to  my  will  for  life  or  death. 
With  this  answer  he  departed ;  after  which  there  was  one  or  two 
courses  to  and  fro  more,  to  have  gotten  a  certainty  for  some  of  their 
lives :  but  finding  that  it  would  not  be,  the  colonel  himself  about 
sunsetting  came  forth  and  requested  respite  with  surcease  of  arms 
till  the  next  morning,  and  then  he  would  give  a  resolute  answer. 

"  Finding  that  to  be  but  a  gain  of  time  to  them,  and  a  loss  of  the 
same  for  myself,  I  definitely  answered  I  would  not  grant  it,  and 
therefore  presently  either  that  he  took  my  offer  or  else  return  and 
I  would  fall  to  my  business.  He  then  embraced  my  knees  simply 
putting  himself  to  my  mercy,  only  he  prayed  that  for  that  night  he 
might  abide  in  the  fort,  and  that  in  the  morning  all  should  be  put 
into  my  hands.  I  asked  hostages  for  the  performance;  they  were 
given.  Morning  came ;  I  presented  my  companies  in  battle  before 
the  fort,  the  colonel  comes  forth  with  ten  or  twelve  of  his  chief  gen- 
tlemen, trailing  their  ensigns  rolled  up,  and  presented  them  unto  me 
with  their  lives  and  the  fort.  I  sent  straight  certain  gentlemen  in, 
to  see  their  weapons  and  armour  laid  down,  and  to  guard  the  muni- 
tion and  victual  there  left  for  spoil.     Then  I  put  in  certain  bands, 


60  SPENSER.  [chap. 

who  straight  fell  to  execution.  There  were  six  hundred  slain. 
Munition  and  victual  great  store :  though  much  wasted  through  the 
disorder  of  the  soldier,  which  in  that  fury  could  not  be  helped. 
Those  that  I  gave  life  unto,  I  have  bestowed  upon  the  captains  and 
gentlemen  whose  service  hath  well  deserved.  ...  Of  the  six  hundred 
slain,  four  hundred  were  as  gallant  and  goodly  personages  as  of  any 
(soldiers)  I  ever  beheld.  So  hath  it  pleased  the  Lord  of  Hosts  to 
deliver  your  enemies  into  your  Highnesses'  hand,  and  so  too  as  one 
only  excepted,  not  one  of  yours  is  either  lost  or  hurt." 

Another  account  adds  to  this  that  "the  Irish  men  and 
women  were  hanged,  with  an  Englishman  who  had  served 
Dr.  Sanders,  and  two  others  whose  arms  and  legs  were 
broken  for  torture." 

Such  scenes  as  those  of  Glenmalure  and  Smerwick,  ter- 
rible as  they  were,  it  might  have  been  any  one's  lot  to  wit- 
ness who  lived  himself  in  presence  of  the  atrocious  war- 
fare of  those  cruel  days,  in  which  the  ordinary  exaspera- 
tion of  combatants  was  made  more  savage  and  unforgiving 
by  religious  hatred,  and  by  the  license  which  religious  ha- 
tred gave  to  irregular  adventure  and  the  sanguinary  re- 
pression of  it.  They  were  not  confined  to  Ireland.  Two 
years  later  the  Marquis  de  Santa  Cruz  treated  in  exactly 
the  same  fashion  a  band  of  French  adventurers,  some  eigh- 
ty noblemen  and  gentlemen  and  two  hundred  soldiers, 
who  were  taken  in  an  attempt  on  the  Azores  during  a 
time  of  nominal  peace  between  the  crowns  of  France  and 
Spain.  In  the  Low  Countries,  and  in  the  religious  wars 
of  France,  it  need  not  be  said  that  even  the  "execution" 
at  Smerwick  was  continually  outdone ;  and  it  is  what  the 
Spaniards  would  of  course  have  done  to  Drake  if  they  had 
caught  him.  Nor  did  the  Spanish  Government  complain 
of  this  treatment  of  its  subjects,  who  had  no  legal  com 
mission. 


nit  ( 

I 


in.]  SPENSER  IN  IRELAND.  61 

But  the  change  of  scene  and  life  to  Spenser  was  much  \ 
more  than  merely  the  sight  of  a  disastrous  skirmish  and 
a  capitulation  without  quarter.  He  had  passed  to  an  en- 
tirely altered  condition  of  social  life ;  he  -had  passed  from 
pleasant  and  merry  England,  with  its  comparative  order 
and  peace,  its  thriving  homesteads  and  wealthy  cities,  its 
industry  and  magnificence — 

"  Eliza's  blessed  field, 
That  still  with  people,  peace,  and  plenty  flows — " 

to  a  land,  beautiful  indeed,  and  alluring,  but  of  which  the 
only  law  was  disorder,  and  the  only  rule  failure.  The 
Cambridge  student,  the  follower  of  country  life  in  Lanca- 
shire or  Kent,  the  scholar  discussing  with  Philip  Sidney 
and  corresponding  with  Gabriel  Harvey  about  classical 
metres  and  English  rimes;  the  shepherd  poet,  Colin  Clout, 
delicately  fashioning  his  innocent  pastorals,  his  love  com- 
plaints, or  his  dexterous  panegyrics  or  satires;  the  cour- 
tier, aspiring  to  shine  in  the  train  of  Leicester  before  the 
eyes  of  the  great  queen — found  himself  transplanted  into 
a  wild  and  turbulent  savagery,  where  the  elements  of  civil 
society  hardly  existed,  and  which  had  the  fatal  power  of 
drawing  into  its  own  evil  and  lawless  ways  the  English  who 
came  into  contact  with  it.  Ireland  had  the  name  and  the 
framework  of  a  Christian  realm.  It  had  its  hierarchy  of 
officers  in  Church  and  State,  its  Parliament,  its  representa- 
tive of  the  Crown.  It  had  its  great  earls  and  lords,  with 
noble  and  romantic  titles,  its  courts  and  councils  and  ad- 
ministration ;  the  Queen's  laws  were  there,  and  where  they 
were  acknowledged,  which  was  not,  however,  everywhere, 
the  English  speech  was  current.  But  underneath  this 
name  and  outside,  all  was  coarse,  and  obstinately  set  against 
civilized  order.     There  was   nothing  but  She   wreck   and 


62  SPENSER.  [chap. 

clashing  of  disintegrated  customs,  the  lawlessness  of  fierce 
and  ignorant  barbarians,  whose  own  laws  had  been  de- 
stroyed, and  who  would  recognize  no  other;  the  blood-feuds 
of  rival  septs ;  the  ambitions  and  deadly  treacheries  of  ri- 
val nobles,  oppressing  all  weaker  than  themselves,  and  main- 
taining in  waste  and  idleness  their  crowds  of  brutal  retain- 
ers. In  one  thing  only  was  there  agreement,  though  not 
even  in  this  was  there  union  ;  and  that  was  in  deep,  im- 
placable hatred  of  their  English  masters.  And  with  these 
English  masters,  too,  amid  their  own  jealousies  and  back- 
bitings  and  mischief-making,  their  own  bitter  antipathies 
and  chronic  despair,  there  was  only  one  point  of  agree- 
ment, and  that  was  their  deep  scorn  and  loathing  of  the 
L_  Irish. 

This  is  Irish  dealing  with  Irish,  in  Minister,  at  this 
time : 

"  The  Lord  Roche  kept  a  freeholder,  who  had  eight  plowlands,  pris- 
oner, and  hand-locked  him  till  he  had  surrendered  seven  plowlands 
and  a  half,  on  agreement  to  keep  the  remaining  plowland  free ;  but 
when  this  was  done,  the  Lord  Roche  extorted  as  many  exactions  from 
that  half-plowland,  as  from  any  other  half-plowland  in  his  country. 
.  .  .  And  even  the  great  men  were  under  the  same  oppression  from 
the  greater:  for  the  Earl  of  Desmond  forcibly  took  away  the  Sene- 
schal of  Imokilly's  corn  from  his  own  land,  though  he  was  one  of  the 
most  considerable  gentlemen  in  Munster."1 

And  this  is  English  dealing  with  Irish  : 

"  Mr.  Henry  Sheffield  asks  Lord  Burghley's  interest  with  Sir  George 
Carew,  to  be  made  his  deputy  at  Leighlin,  in  place  of  Mr.  Bagcnall, 
who  met  his  death  under  the  following  circumstances : 

"  Mr.  Bagenall,  after  he  had  bought  the  barony  of  Odrone  of  Sir 

George  Carew,  could  not  be  contented  to  let  the  Kavanaghs  enjoy 

n  lands  ;is  old  Sir  Peter  Carew,  young  Sir  Peter,  and  last,  Sir 

1  Cox,  Hist,  of  Ireland,  :'.54. 


in.]  SPENSER  IN  IRELAND.  63 

George  were  content  that  they  should  have,  but  threatened  to  kill 
them  wherever  he  could  meet  them.  As  it  is  now  fallen  out,  about 
the  last  of  November,  one  Henry  Heron,  Mr.  Bagenall's  brother-in- 
law,  having  lost  four  kine,  making  that  his  quarrel,  he  being  accom- 
panied with  divers  others  to  the  number  of  twenty  or  thereabouts,  by 
the  procurement  of  his  brother-in-law,  went  to  the  house  of  Hortagh 
Oge,  a  man  seventy  years  old,  the  chief  of  the  Kavanaghs,  with  their 
swords  drawn :  which  the  old  man  seeing,  for  fear  of  his  life,  sought 
to  go  into  the  woods,  but  was  taken  aud  brought  before  Mr.  Heron, 
who  charged  him  that  his  son  had  taken  the  cows.  The  old  man 
answered  that  he  could  pay  for  them.  Mr.  Heron  would  not  be  con- 
tented, but  bade  his  men  kill  him,  he  desiring  to  be  brought  for  trial 
at  the  sessions.  Further,  the  morrow  after  they  went  again  into  the 
woods,  and  there  they  found  another  old  man,  a  servant  of  Mortagh 
Oge,  and  likewise  killed  him,  Mr.  Heron  saying  that  it  was  because 
he  would  not  confess  the  cows. 

"  On  these  murders,  the  sons  of  the  old  man  laid  an  ambush  for 
Mr.  Bagenall ;  who,  following  them  more  upon  will  than  with  discre- 
tion, fell  into  their  hands,  and  was  slain  with  thirteen  more.  He 
had  sixteen  wounds  above  his  girdle,  and  one  of  his  legs  cut  off,  and 
his  tongue  drawn  out  of  his  mouth  and  slit.  There  is  not  one  man 
dwelling  in  all  this  country  that  was  Sir  George  Carew's,  but  every 
man  fled,  and  left  the  whole  country  waste;  and  so  I  fear  me  it  will 
continue,  now  the  deadly  feud  is  so  great  between  them."1 

Something  like  this  lias  been  occasionally  seen  in  our 
colonies  towards  the  native  races ;  but  there  it  never  reach- 
ed the  same  height  of  unrestrained  and  frankly  justified 
indulgence.  The  English  officials  and  settlers  knew  well 
enough  that  the  only  thought  of  the  native  Irish  was  to 
restore  their  abolished  customs,  to  recover  their  confiscated 
lands,  to  re-establish  the  crippled  power  of  their  chiefs ; 
they  knew  that  for  this  insurrection  was  ever  ready,  and 
that  treachery  would  shrink  from  nothing.  And  to  meet 
it,  the  English  on  the  spot  —  all  but  a  few  who  were  de- 
nounced as  unpractical  sentimentalists  for  favouring  an  ir- 
1  Irish  Papers,  March  20,  1587. 


64  SPENSER.  [chap. 

reconcilable  foe — could  think  of  no  way  of  enforcing  order 
except  by  a  wholesale  use  of  the  sword  and  the  gallows. 
They  could  find  no  means  of  restoring  peace  except  turn- 
ing the  rich  land  into  a  wilderness,  and  rooting  out  by 
famine  those  whom  the  soldier  or  the  hangman  had  not 
overtaken.  "  No  governor  shall  do  any  good  here,"  wrote 
an  English  observer  in  1581,  "except  he  show  himself  a 
Tamerlane." 

In  a  general  account,  even  contemporary,  such  statements 
might  suggest  a  violent  suspicion  of  exaggeration.  We 
possess  the  means  of  testing  it.  The  Irish  State  Papers  of 
the  time  contain  the  ample  reports  and  letters,  from  day  to 
day,  of  the  energetic  and  resolute  Englishmen  employed  in 
council  or  in  the  field — men  of  business  like  Sir  William 
Pelham,  Sir  Henry  Wallop,  Edward  Waterhouse,  and  Geof- 
frey Fenton  ; — daring  and  brilliant  officers  like  Sir  William 
Drury,  Sir  Nicolas  Malby,  Sir  Warham  St.  Leger,  Sir  John 
Norreys,  and  John  Zouch.  These  papers  are  the  basis  of 
Mr.  Froude's  terrible  chapters  on  the  Desmond  rebellion, 
and  their  substance  in  abstract  or  abridgment  is  easily  ac- 
cessible in  the  printed  calendars  of  the  Record  Office.  They 
show  that  from  first  to  last,  in  principle  and  practice,  in 
council  and  in  act,  the  Tamerlane  system  was  believed  in, 
and  carried  out  without  a  trace  of  remorse  or  question  as 
to  its  morality.  "  If  hell  were  open,  and  all  the  evil  spirits 
were  abroad,"  writes  Walsingham's  correspondent,  Andrew 
Trollope,  who  talked  about  Tamerlane,  "  they  could  never 
be  worse  than  these  Irish  rogues — rather  dogs,  and  worse 
than  dogs,  for  dogs  do  but  after  their  kind,  and  they  de- 
generate from  all  humanity."  There  is  but  one  way  of 
dealing  with  wild  dogs  or  wolves ;  and  accordingly  the 
English  chiefs  insisted  that  this  was  the  way  to  deal  with 
the  Irish.     The  state  of  Ireland,  writes  one,  "is  like  an  old 


m  ]  SPENSER  IN  IRELAND.  65 

cloak  often  before  patched,  wherein  is  now  made  so  great 
a  gash  that  all  the  world  doth  know  that  there  is  no  rem- 
edy but  to  make  a  new."  This  means,  in  the  language  of 
another,  "  that  there  is  no  way  to  daunt  these  people  but 
by  the  edge  of  the  sword,  and  to  plant  better  in  their 
place,  or  rather,  let  them  cut  one  another's  throats." 
These  were  no  idle  words.  Every  page  of  these  papers 
contains  some  memorandum  of  execution  and  destruction. 
The  progress  of  a  Deputy,  or  the  President  of  a  province, 
through  the  country  is  always  accompanied  with  its  tale 
of  hangings.  There  is  sometimes  a  touch  of  the  gro- 
tesque. "At  Kilkenny,"  writes  Sir  W.  Drury,  "the  jail 
being  full,  we  caused  sessions  immediately  to  begin.  Thir- 
ty-six persons  were  executed,  among  which  some  good 
ones — two  for  treason,  a  blackamoor,  and  two  witches  by 
natural  law,  for  that  we  found  no  law  to  try  them  by  in 
this  realm."  It  is  like  the  account  of  some  unusual  kind 
of  game  in  a  successful  bag.  "If  taking  of  cows,  and 
killing  of  kerne  and  churles  had  been  worth  advertizing," 
writes  Lord  Grey  to  the  Queen,  "  I  would  have  had  every 
day  to  have  troubled  your  Highness."  Yet  Lord  Grey 
protests  in  the  same  letter  that  he  has  never  taken  the  life 
of  any,  however  evil,  who  submitted.  At  the  end  of  the 
Desmond  outbreak,  the  chiefs  in  the  different  provinces 
send  in  their  tale  of  death.  Ormond  complains  of  the 
false  reports  of  his  "  slackness  in  but  killing  three  men," 
whereas  the  number  was  more  than  3000 ;  and  he  sends 
in  his  "brief  note"  of  his  contribution  to  the  slaughter, 
"  598  persons  of  quality,  besides  3000  or  4000  others,  and 
158  slain  since  his  discharge."  The  end  was  that,  as  one 
of  the  chief  actors  writes,  Sir  Warham  St.  Leger,  "  Munster 
is  nearly  unpeopled  by  the  murders  done  by  the  rebels, 
and  the  killings  by  the  soldiers ;  30^000  dead  of  famine 

4 


66  SPENSER.  [chap. 

in  half  a  year,  besides  numbers  that  are  hanged  and  killed. 
The  realm,"  he  adds,  "  was  never  in  greater  danger,  or  in 
like  misery.*'  But  in  the  murderous  work  itself  there  was 
not  much  danger.  "  Our  wars,"  writes  Sir  Henry  Wallop, 
in  the  height  of  the  struggle,  "are  but  like  fox-hunting." 
And  when  the  English  Government  remonstrates  against 
this  system  of  massacre,  the  Lord-Deputy  writes  back  that 
"he  sorrows  that  pity  for  the  wicked  and  evil  should  be 
enchanted  into  her  Majesty." 

And  of  this  dreadful  policy,  involving,  as  the  price  of 
the  extinction  of  Desmond's  rebellion,  the  absolute  desola- 
tion of  the  South  and  West  of  Ireland,  Lord  Grey  came  to 
be  the  deliberate  and  unfaltering  champion.  His  admin- 
istration lasted  only  two  years,  and  in  spite  of  his  natural 
kindness  of  temper,  which  we  need  not  doubt,  it  was,  from 
the  supposed  necessities  of  his  position,  and  the  unwaver- 
ing consent  of  all  English  opinions  round  him,  a  rule  of 
extermination.  No  scruple  ever  crossed  his  mind,  except 
that  he  had  not  been  sufficiently  uncompromising  in  put- 
ting first  the  religious  aspect  of  the  quarrel.  "  If  Elizabeth 
had  allowed  him,"  writes  Mr.  Froude,  "  he  would  have  now 
made  a  Mahommedan  conquest  of  the  whole  island,  and 
offered  the  Irish  the  alternative  of  the  Gospel  or  the 
sword."  With  the  terrible  sincerity  of  a  Puritan,  he  re- 
proached himself  that  he  had  allowed  even  the  Queen's 
commands  to  come  before  the  "  one  article  of  looking  to 
God's  dear  service."  "  I  confess  my  sin,"  he  wrote  to 
Walsingham,  "  I  have  followed  man  too  much,"  and  he 
saw  why  his  efforts  had  been  in  vain.  "  Baal's  prophets 
and  councillors  shall  prevail.  I  see  it  is  so.  I  see  it  is 
just.  I  see  it  past  help.  I  rest  despaired."  His  policy 
of  blood  and  devastation,  breaking  the  neck  of  Desmond's 
rebellion,  but  failing  to  put  an  end  to  it,  became  at  length 


in.]  STEXSEB  IX  IRELAND.  67 

more  than  t lie  home  Government  could  bear;  and  with 
mutual  dissatisfaction  lie  was  recalled  before  his  work  was 
done.  Among  the  documents  relating  to  his  explanations 
with  the  English  Government,  is  one  of  which  this  is  the 
abstract:  "Declaration  (Dec.  1583),  by  Arthur,  Lord  Grey 
of  Wilton,  to  the  Queen,  showing  the  state  of  Ireland  when 
he  was  appointed  Deputy,  with  the  services  of  his  govern- 
ment, and  the  plight  lie  left  it  in.  1485  chief  men  and 
gentlemen  slain,  not  accounting  those  of  meaner  sort,  nor 
yet  executions  by  law,  and  hilling  of  churles,  which  were 
innumerable." 

This  was  the  world  into  which  Spenser  was  abruptly 
thrown,  and  in  which  he  was  henceforward  to  have  his 
home.  He  first  became  acquainted  with  it  as  Lord  Grey's 
Secretary  in  the  Minister  war.  lie  himself  in  later  days, 
with  ample  experience  and  knowledge,  reviewed  the  whole 
of  this  dreadful  history,  its  policy,  its  necessities,  its  re- 
sults :  and  no  more  instructive  document  has  come  down 
to  us  from  those  times.  But  his  description  of  the  way 
in  which  the  plan  of  extermination  was  carried  out  in 
Munster  before  his  eyes  may  fittingly  form  a  supplement 
to  the  language  on  the  spot  of  those  responsible  for  it. 

"Fudox.  But  what,  then,  shall  be  the  conclusion  of  this  war?  .  .  . 

"  Iren.  The  end  will  I  assure  me  be  very  short  and  much  sooner 
than  can  be,  in  so  great  a  trouble,  as  it  seemeth,  hoped  for,  although 
there  should  none  of  them  fall  by  the  sword  nor  be  slain  by  the  sol- 
dier: yet  thus  being  kept  from  manurancc  and  their  cattle  from  run- 
ning abroad,  by  this  hard  restraint  they  would  quickly  consume  them- 
selves, and  devour  one  another.  The  proof  whereof  I  saw  sufficient- 
ly exampled  in  these  late  wars  of  Minister;  for  notwithstanding  that 
the  same  was  a  most  rich  and  plentiful  country,  full  of  corn  and  cat- 
tle that  you  would  have  thought  they  should  have  been  able  to  stand 
long,  yet  ere  one  year  and  a  half  they  were  brought  to  such  wretch- 
edness as  that  any  stony  heart  would  have  rued  the  same.     Out  of 


68  SPEXSER.  f  i  n.vr. 

every  cu'rncr  of  the  woods  and  glynnes  they  came  creepm-;  forth  upon 
their  hands,  for  their  legs  could  not  bear  them  ;  they  looked  like  anat- 
omies of  death,  they  spake  like  ghosts  crying  out  of  their  graves ;  they 
did  eat  the  dead  carrions,  happy  where  they  could  find  them,  yea  and 
one  another  soon  after,  insomuch  that  the  very  carcases  they  spared 
not  to  scrape  out  of  their  graves ;  and  if  they  found  a  plot  of  water- 
cresses  or  shamrocks,  there  they  flocked  as  to  a  feast  for  a  time,  yet 
not  able  long  to  continue  there  withal ;  that  in  a  short  space  there 
were  none  almost  left,  and  a  most  populous  and  plentiful  country 
suddenly  left  void  of  man  and  beast ;  yet  sure  in  all  that  war  time 
perished  not  many  by  the  swerd,  but  all  by  the  extremity  of  famine 
which  they  themselves  had  wrought."' 

It  is  hardly  surprising  that  Lord  Grey's  Secretary  should 
share  the  opinions  and  the  feelings  of  his  master  and  pa- 
tron.  Certainly  in  his  company  and  service,  Spenser  learn- 
ed to  look  upon  Ireland  and  the  Irish  with  the  impatience 
and  loathing  which  filled  most  Englishmen  ;  and  it  must 
be  added  with  the  same  greedy  eyes.  In  this  new  atmos- 
phere, in  which  his  life  was  henceforth  spent,  amid  the 
daily  talk  of  ravage  and  death,  the  daily  scramble  for  the 
spoils  of  rebels  and  traitors,  the  daily  alarms  of  treachery 
and  insurrection,  a  man  naturally  learns  hardness.  Under 
Spenser's  imaginative  richness,  and  poetic  delicacy  of  feel- 
ing, there  appeared  two  features.  There  was  a  shrewd 
sense  of  the  practical  side  of  things:  and  there  was  a  full 
share  of  that  sternness  of  temper  which  belonged  to  the 
time.  He  came  to  Ireland  for  no  romantic  purpose;  he 
came  to  make  his  fortune  as  well  as  he  could:  and  he  ac- 
cepted the  conditions  of  the  place  and  scene,  and  entered 
at  once  into  the  game  of  adventure  and  gain  which  was 
the  natural  one  for  all  English  comers,  and  of  which  the 
prizes  were  lucrative  offices  and  forfeited  manors  and  ab- 
beys. And  in  the  native  population  and  native  interests, 
he  saw  nothing  but  wdiat  called  forth  not  merely  antipa- 


in.]  SPENSER  IX  IRELAND.  69 

thy,  but  deep  moral  condemnation.  It  was  not  merely 
that  the  Irish  were  ignorant,  thriftless,  filthy,  debased,  and 
loathsome  in  their  pitiable  misery  and  despair:  it  was  that 
in  his  view,  justice,  truth,  honesty  had  utterly  perished 
among  them,  and  therefore  were  not  due  to  them.  Of  any 
other  side  to  the  picture  he,  like  other  good  Englishmen, 
was  entirely  unconscious :  he  saw  only  on  all  sides  of  him 
the  empire  of  barbarism  and  misrule  which  valiant  and 
godly  Englishmen  were  fighting  to  vanquish  and  destroy 
— fighting  against  apparent  but  not  real  odds.  And  all 
this  was  aggravated  by  the  stiff  adherence  of  the  Irish  to 
their  old  religion.  Spenser  came  over  with  the  common 
opinion  of  Protestant  Englishmen,  that  they  had  at  least 
in  England  the  pure  and  undoubted  religion  of  the  Bible: 
and  in  Ireland,  he  found  himself  face  lo  face  with  the 
very  superstition  in  its  lowest  forms  which  he  had  so  hated 
in  England.  He  left  it  plotting  in  England ;  he  found  it 
in  armed  rebellion  in  Ireland.  Like  Lord  Grey,  he  saw  in 
Popery  the  root  of  all  the  mischiefs  of  Ireland ;  and  his 
sense  of  true,  religion,  as  well  as  his  convictions  of  right, 
conspired  to  recommend  to  him  Lord  Grey's  pitiless  gov- 
ernment. The  opinion  was  everywhere — it  was  undisputed 
and  unexamined — that  a  policy  of  force,  direct  or  indirect, 
was  the  natural  and  right  way  of  reducing  diverging  re- 
ligions to  submission  and  uniformity  :  that  religious  dis- 
agreement ought  as  a  matter  of  principle  to  be  subdued 
by  violence  of  one  degree  or  another.  All  wise  and  good 
men  thought  so ;  all  statesmen  and  rulers  acted  so.  Spenser 
found  in  Ireland  a  state  of  things  which  seemed  to  make 
this  doctrine  the  simplest  dictate  of  common  sense. 

In  August,  1582,  Lord  Grey  left  Ireland.  He  had 
accepted  his  office  with  the  utmost  reluctance,  from  the 
known  want  of  agreement  between  the  Queen  and  himself 


70  SPENSER.  [chap. 

as  to  policy.  He  had  executed  it  in  a  way  which  great- 
ly displeased  the  homo  Government.  And  he  gave  it  up, 
with  his  special  wort,  the  extinction  of  Desmond's  rebel- 
lion, still  unaccomplished.  In  spite  of  the  thousands  slain, 
and  a  province  made  a  desert,  Desmond  was  still  at  large 
and  dangerous.  Lord  Grey  had  been  ruthlessly  severe, 
and  yet  not  successful.  For  months  there  had  been  an 
interchange  of  angry  letters  between  him  and  the  Govern- 
ment. Burghley,  he  complains  to  Walsingham,  was  "  so 
heavy  against  him."  The  Queen  and  Burghley  wanted 
order  restored,  but  did  not  like  either  the  expense  of  war, 
or  the  responsibility  before  other  governments  for  the 
severity  which  their  agents  on  the  spot  judged  necessary. 
Knowing  that  he  did  not  please,  he  had  begun  to  solicil 
his  recall  before  he  had  been  a  year  in  Ireland;  and  at 
length  he  was  recalled,  not  to  receive  thanks,  but  to  meet 
a  strict,  if  not  hostile,  inquiry  into  his  administration.  Be- 
sides what  had  been  on  the  surface  of  his  proceedings  to 
dissatisfy  the  Queen,  there  had  been,  as  in  the  case  of  ev- 
ery Deputy,  a  continued  underground  stream  of  backbit- 
ing and  insinuation  going  home  against  him.  Spenser  did 
not  forget  this,  when  in  the  Faerie  Queene  he  shadowed 
forth  Lord  Grey's  career  in  the  adventures  of  Arthegal,  the 
great  Knight  of  Justice,  met  on  his  return  home  from  his 
triumphs  by  the  hags,  Envy  and  Detraction,  and  the  bray- 
in<x  of  the  hundred  tonmics  of  the  Blatant  Beast.  Irish 
lords  and  partisans,  calling  themselves  loyal,  when  they 
could  not  get  what  they  wanted,  or  when  he  threatened 
them  for  their  insincerity  or  insolence,  at  once  wrote  to 
England.  His  English  colleagues,  civil  and  military,  were 
his  natural  rivals  or  enemies,  ever  on  the  watch  to  spy  out 
and  report,  if  necessary,  to  misrepresent,  what  was  ques- 
tionable or  unfortunate  in  his  proceedings.      Permanent 


in]  SPENSER  IN  IRELAND.  71 

officials  like  Archbishop  Adam  Loftus  the  Chancellor,  or 
Treasurer  Wallop,  or  Secretary  Fenton,  knew  more  than 
he  did;  they  corresponded  directly  with  the  ministers; 
they  knew  that  they  were  expected  to  keep  a  strict  watch 
on  his  expenditure  ;  and  they  had  no  scruple  to  send  home 
complaints  against  him  behind  his  back,  as  they  did  against 
one  another.  A  secretary  in  Dublin  like  Geoffrey  Fenton 
is  described  as  a  moth  in  the  garment  of  every  Deputy. 
Grey  himself  complains  of  the  underhand  work;  he  can- 
not prevent  "  backbiters'  report :"  he  has  found  of  late 
"  very  suspicious  dealing  amongst  all  his  best  esteemed  as- 

ml  X  O  O 

sociates ;"  he  "  dislikes  not  to  be  informed  of  the  charges 
against  him."  In  fact,  they  were  accusing  him  of  one  of 
the  gravest  sins  of  which  a  Deputy  could  be  guilty ;  they 
were  writing  home  that  he  Avas  lavishing  the  forfeited 
estates  among  his  favourites,  under  pretence  of  rewarding 
service,  to  the  great  loss  and  permanent  damage  of  her 
Majesty's  revenue ;  and  they  were  forwarding  plans  for 
commissions  to  distribute  these  estates,  of  which  the  Dep- 
uty should  not  be  a  member. 

He  had  the  common  fate  of  those  who  accepted  great 
responsibilities  under  the  Queen.  He  was  expected  to  do 
very  hard  tasks  with  insufficient  meaus,  and  to  receive 
more  blame  where  he  failed  than  thanks  where  he  suc- 
ceeded. He  had  every  one,  English  and  Irish,  against  him 
in  Ireland,  and  no  one  for  him  in  England.  He  was  driven 
to  violence  because  he  wanted  strength ;  he  took  liberties 
with  forfeitures  belonging  to  the  Queen  because  he  had  no 
other  means  of  rewarding  public  services.  It  is  not  easy 
to  feel  much  sympathy  for  a  man  who,  brave  and  public- 
spirited  as  he  was,  could  think  of  no  remedy  for  the  mis- 
eries of  Ireland  but  wholesale  bloodshed.  Yet,  compared 
with  the  resident  officials  who  caballed  against  him,  and 


70  SPENSER.  [chap. 

who  got  rich  on  these  miseries,  the  Wallops  and  Fentons 
of  the  Irish  Council,  this  stern  Puritan,  so  remorseless  in 
what  he  believed  to  be  his  duty  to  his  Queen  and  his 
faith,  stands  out  as  an  honest  and  faithful  public  servant 
of  a  Government  which  seemed  hardly  to  know  its  own 
mind,  which  vacillated  between  indulgence  and  severity, 
and  which  hampered  its  officers  by  contradictory  policies, 
ignorant  of  their  difficulties,  and  incapable  of  controlling 
the  supplies  for  a  costly  and  wasteful  Avar.  Lord  Grey's 
strong  hand,  though  incapable  of  reaching  the  real  causes 
of  Irish  evils,  undoubtedly  saved  the  country  at  a  moment 
of  serious  peril,  and  once  more  taught  lawless  Geraldines, 
and  Eustaces,  and  Burkes  the  terrible  lesson  of  English 
power.  The  work  which  he  had  half  done  in  crushing 
Desmond  was  soon  finished  by  Desmond's  hereditary  ri- 
val, Ormond;  and  under  the  milder,  but  not  more  popu- 
lar, rule  of  his  successor,  the  proud  and  irritable  Sir  John 
Perrot,  Ireland  had  for  a  few  years  the  peace  which  con- 
sisted in  the  absence  of  a  definite  rebellion,  till  Tyrone  be- 
gan to  stir  in  1505,  and  Perrot  went  back  a  disgraced  man, 
to  die  a  prisoner  in  the  Tower. 

Lord  Grey  left  behind  him  unappeasable  animosities, 
and  returned  to  meet  jealous  rivals  and  an  ill-satisfied  mis- 
tress. But  he  had  left  behind  one  whose  admiration  and 
reverence  he  had  won,  and  who  was  not  afraid  to  take 
care  of  his  reputation.  Whether  Spenser  went  back  with 
his  patron  or  not  in  1582,  lie  was  from  henceforth  mainly 
resident  in  Ireland.  Lord  Grey's  administration,  and  the 
principles  on  which  it  had  been  carried  on,  had  made  a 
deep  impression  on  Spenser's  mind.  His  first  ideal  hud 
been  Philip  Sidney,  the  attractive   and   all -accomplished 

gentleman — 

°  "  The  President 

Of  noblesse  and  of  chevalrie," — 


III. 


SPENSER  IN  IRELAND.  73 


and  to  the  end  the  pastoral  Colin  Clout,  for  he  ever  re- 
tained his  first  poetic  name,  was  faithful  to  his  ideal. 
But  in  the  stern  Proconsul,  under  whom  he  had  become 
hardened  into  a  keen  and  resolute  colonist,  he  had  come 
in  contact  with  a  new  type  of  character;  a  governor,  un- 
der the  sense  of  duty,  doing  the  roughest  of  work  in  the 
roughest  of  ways.  In  Lord  Grey,  he  had  this  character, 
not  as  lie  might  read  of  it  in  books,  but  acting  out  its 
qualities  in  present  life,  amid  the  unexpected  emergencies, 
the  desperate  alternatives,  the  calls  for  instant  decision, 
the  pressing  necessities  and  the  anxious  hazards,  of  a 
course  full  of  uncertainty  and  peril.  He  had  before  his 
eyes,  day  by  day,  fearless,  unshrinking  determination,  in  a 
hateful  and  most  unpromising  task.  lie  believed  that  he 
saw  a  living  example  of  strength,  manliness,  and  noble- 
ness ;  of  unsparing  and  unswerving  zeal  for  order  and  re- 
ligion, and  s;ood  government ;  of  sinoje-hearted  devotion 
to  truth  and  right,  and  to  the  Queen.  Lord  Grey  grew  at 
last,  in  the  poet's  imagination,  into  the  image  and  repre- 
sentative of  perfect  and  masculine  justice.  When  Spenser 
began  to  enshrine  in  a  great  allegory  his  ideas  of  human 
life  and  character,  Lord  Grey  supplied  the  moral  features, 
and  almost  the  name,  of  one  of  its  chief  heroes.  Spenser 
did  more  than  embody  his  memory  in  poetical  allegories. 
In  Spenser's  View  of  the  'present  State  of  Ireland,  written 
some  years  after  Lord  Grey's  death,  he  gives  his  mature, 
and  then,  at  any  rate,  disinterested  approbation  of  Lord 
Grey's  administration,  and  his  opinion  of  the  causes  of  its 
failure.  He  kindles  into  indignation  when  "  most  untruely 
and  maliciously,  those  evil  tongues  backbite  and  slander  the 
sacred  ashes  of  that  most  just  and  honourable  personage, 
whose  least  virtue,  of  many  most  excellent,  which  abounded 
in  his  heroieal  spirit,  they  were  never  able  to  aspire  unto." 

4* 


7-1  SPEXSER.  [chap. 

Lord  Grey's  patronage  had  brought  Spenser  into  the 
public  service  ;  perhaps  that  patronage,  tlie  patronage  of 
a  man  who  had  powerful  enemies,  was  the  cause  that 
Spenser's  preferments,  after  Lord  Grey's  recall,  were  on  so 
moderate  a  scale.  The  notices  which  we  glean  from  in- 
direct sources  about  Spenser's  employment  in  Ireland  are 
meagre  enough,  but  they  are  distinct.  They  show  him  as 
a  subordinate  public  servant,  of  no  great  account,  but  yet, 
like  other  public  servants  in  Ireland,  profiting,  in  his  de- 
gree, by  the  opportunities  of  the  time.  In  the  spring  fol- 
lowing Lord  Grey's  arrival  (March  22, 15S1),  Spenser  was 
appointed  Cleric  of  Decrees  and  Recognizances  in  the  Irish 
Court  of  Chancery,  retaining  his  place  as  Secretary  to  the 
Lord-Deputy,  in  which  character  his  signature  sometimes 
appears  in  the  Irish  Records,  certifying  State  documents 
sent  to  England.  This  office  is  said  by  Fuller  to  have 
been  a  "  lucrative  "  one.  In  the  same  year  he  received 
a  lease  of  the  Abbey  and  Manor  of  Enniscorthy,  in  the 
County  of  Wexford.  Enniscorthy  was  an  important  post 
in  the  network  of  Eno-lish  trarrisons,  on  one  of  the  roads 
from  Dublin  to  the  South.  He  held  it  but  for  a  short 
time.  It  was  transferred  by  him  to  a  citizen  of  Wexford, 
Richard  Synot,  an  agent,  apparently,  of  the  powerful  Sir 
Henry  Wallop,  the  Treasurer;  and  it  was  soon  after  trans- 
ferred by  Synot  to  his  patron,  an  official  who  secured  to 
himself  a  large  share  of  the  spoils  of  Desmond's  rebellion. 
Further,  Spenser's  name  appears,  in  a  list  of  persons  (Jan- 
uary, 1582),  among  whom  Lord  Grey  had  distributed  some 
of  the  forfeited  property  of  the  rebels — a  list  sent  home 
by  him  in  answer  to  charges  of  waste  and  damage  to  the 
Queen's  revenue,  busily  urged  against  him  in  Ireland  by 
men  like  Wallop  and  Fenton,  and  readily  listened  to  by 
English  ministers  like  Burghley,  who  complained  that  Ire- 


in.]  SPENSER  IN  IRELAND.  T5 

land  was  a  "  gulf  of  consuming  treasure."  The  grant  was 
mostly  to  persons  active  in  service,  among  others  one  to 
Wallop  himself;  and  a  certain  number  of  smaller  value 
to  persons  of  Lord  Grey's  own  household.  There,  among 
yeomen  ushers,  gentlemen  ushers,  gentlemen  serving  the 
Lord-Deputy,  and  Welshmen  and  Irishmen  with  uncouth 
names,  to  whom  small  gratifications  had  been  allotted  out 
of  the  spoil,  we  read — "the  lease  of  a  house  in  Dublin  be- 
longing to  [Lord]  Baltinglas  for  six  years  to  come  to  Ed- 
mund Spenser,  one  of  the  Lord-Deputy's  Secretaries,  val- 
ued at  5/."  .  .  .  "  of  a  '  custodiam '  of  John  Eustace's  [one 
of  Baltinglas'  family]  land  of  the  Newland  to  Edmund 
Spenser,  one  of  the  Lord-Deputy's  Secretaries."  In  July, 
1586,  when  every  one  was  full  of  the  project  for  "plant- 
ing" Munster,  he  was  still  in  Dublin,  for  he  addresses 
from  thence  a  sonnet  to  Gabriel  Harvey.  In  March,  158-f, 
we  find  the  following,  in  a  list  of  officers  on  the  establish- 
ment of  the  province  of  Munster,  which  the  government 
was  endeavouring  to  colonize  from  the  west  of  England : 
"Lodovick  Briskett,  clerk  to  the  council  (at  201.  per  an- 
num), 131.  65.  8c?.  (this  is  exercised  by  one  Spenser,  as  dep- 
uty for  the  said  Briskett,  to  whom  (*.  e.,  Briskett)  it  was 
granted  by  patent  6  Nov.  25  Eliz.  (1583)."  (CarewMSS.) 
Bryskett  was  a  man  much  employed  in  Irish  business.  He 
had  been  Clerk  to  the  Irish  Council,  had  been  a  correspond- 
ent of  Burghley  and  Walsingham,  and  had  aspired  to  be 
Secretary  of  State  when  Fenton  obtained  the  poet :  possi- 
bly in  disappointment,  he  had  retired,  with  an  office  which 
he  exercised  by  deputy,  to  his  lands  in  Wexford.  He  was 
a  poet,  and  a  friend  of  Spenser's :  and  it  may  have  been 
by  his  interest  with  the  dispensers  of  patronage,  that  "  one 
Spenser,"  who  had  been  his  deputy,  succeeded  to  his  office. 
In  thi3  position  Spenser  was  brought  into  communica- 


10  SPENSER.  [chap. 

tion  with  the  powerful  English  chiefs  on  the  Council  of 
Munster,  and  also  with  the  lending  men  among  the  Under- 
takers, as  they  were  called,  among  whom  moi'e  than  half  a 
million  of  acres  of  the  escheated  and  desolate  lands  of  the 
fallen  Desmond  were  to  be  divided,  on  condition  of  each 
Undertaker  settling  on  his  estate  a  proportionate  number 
of  English  gentlemen,  yeomen,  artisans  and  labourers  with 
their  families,  who  were  to  bring  the  ruined  province  into 
order  and  cultivation.  The  President  and  Vice-President 
of  the  Council  were  the  two  Norreys,  John  and  Thomas, 
two  of  the  most  gallant  of  a  gallant  family.  The  project 
for  the  planting  of  Munster  had  been  originally  started  be- 
fore the  rebellion,  in  15G8.  It  had  been  one  of  the  causes 
of  the  rebellion  ;  but  now  that  Desmond  was  fallen,  it  was 
revived.  It  had  been  received  in  England  Avith  favour  and 
hope.  Men  of  influence  and  enterprise,  Sir  Christopher 
Hatton,  AValsingham,  Y\Talter  Ralegh,  had  embarked  in  it ; 
and  the  government  had  made  an  appeal  to  the  English 
country  gentlemen  to  take  advantage  of  this  new  opening 
for  their  younger  sons,  and  to  send  them  over  at  the  head 
of  colonies  from  the  families  of  their  tenants  and  depend- 
ants, to  occupy  a  rich  and  beautiful  land  on  easy  terms  of- 
rent.  In  the  Western  Counties,  north  and  south,  the  ap- 
peal had  awakened  interest.  In  the  list  of  Undertakers 
are  found  Cheshire  and  Lancashire  names— Stanley,  Fleet- 
wood, Molyneux :  and  a  still  larger  number  for  Somerset, 
Devon,  and  Dorset — Popham,  Rogers,  Coles,  Ralegh,  Chud- 
leigh,  Champernown.  The  plan  of  settlement  was  care- 
fully and  methodically  traced  out.  The  province  was  sur- 
veyed as  well  as  it  could  be  under  great  difficulties.  Maps 
were  made  which  Lord  Burghley  annotated.  "  Seigniories  " 
were  created  of  varying  size,  12,000,  8000,  0000,  4000 
acres,  with  corresponding  obligations  as  to  the  number 


in.]  SPENSER  IN  IRELAND.  77 

and  class  of  farms  and  inhabitants  in  each.  Legal  science 
in  England  was  to  protect  titles  by  lengthy  patents  and 
leases ;  administrative  watchfulness  and  firmness  were  to 
secure  them  in  Ireland.  Privileges  of  trade  were  granted  to 
the  Undertakers :  they  were  even  allowed  to  transport  coin 
out  of  England  to  Ireland  :  and  a  long  respite  was  granted 
them  before  the  Crown  was  to  claim  its  rents.  Strict  rules 
were  laid  down  to  keep  the  native  Irish  out  of  the  English 
lands  and  from  intermarrying  with  the  English  families. 
In  this  partition,  Seigniories  were  distributed  by  the  Under- 
takers among  themselves  with  the  free  carelessness  of  men 
dividing  the  spoil.  The  great  people,  like  Hatton  and 
Ralegh,  were  to  have  their  two  or  three  Seigniories :  the 
County  of  Cork,  with  its  nineteen  Seigniories,  is  assigned  to 
the  gentlemen  undertakers  from  Somersetshire.  The  plan 
was  an  ambitious  and  tempting  one.  But  difficulties  soon 
arose.  The  gentlemen  undertakers  were  not  in  a  hurry 
to  leave  England,  even  on  a  visit  to  their  desolate  and 
dangerous  seigniories  in  Munster.  The  "planting"  did 
not  thrive.  The  Irish  were  inexhaustible  in  raising  legal 
obstacles  and  in  giving  practical  annoyance.  Claims  and 
titles  were  hard  to  discover  or  to  extinguish.  Even  the 
very  attainted  and  escheated  lands  were  challenged  by  vir- 
tue of  settlements  made  before  the  attainders.  The  result 
was  that  a  certain  number  of  Irish  estates  were  added  to 
the  possessions  of  a  certain  number  of  English  families. 
But  Munster  was  not  planted.  Burghley's  policy,  and 
Walsingham's  resolution,  and  Ralegh's  daring  inventive- 
ness were  alike  baffled  by  the  conditions  of  a  problem 
harder  than  the  peopling  of  America  or  the  conquest  of 
India.  Munster  could  not  be  made  English.  After  all  its 
desolation,  it  reverted  in  the  main  to  its  Irish  possessors. 
Of  all  the  schemes  and  efforts  which  accompanied  the 


78  SPENSER.  [chap. 

attempt,  and  the  records  of  which  fill  the  Irish  State  pa- 
pers of  those  years,  Spenser  was  the  near  and  close  spec- 
tator. He  was  in  Dublin  and  on  the  spot,  as  Clerk  of  the 
Council  of  Minister.  And  he  had  become  acquainted,  per- 
haps, by  this  time,  had  formed  a  friendship,  with  Walter 
Ralegh,  one  of  the  most  active  men  in  Irish  business, 
whose  influence  was  rising  wherever  he  was  becominc: 
known.  Most  of  the  knowledge  which  Spenser  thus 
gathered,  and  of  the  impressions  which  a  practical  hand- 
ling of  Irish  affairs  had  left  on  him,  was  embodied  in  his 
interesting  work,  written  several  years  later — A  Vieio  of 
the  present  State  of  Ireland.  But  his  connexion  with 
Munster  not  unnaturally  brought  him  also  an  accession  of 
fortune.  When  Ralegh  and  the  "  Somersetshire  men  " 
were  dividing  among  them  the  County  of  Cork,  the  Clerk 
of  the  Council  was  remembered  by  some  of  his  friends. 
He  was  admitted  among  the  Undertakers.  His  name  ap- 
pears in  the  list,  among  great  statesmen  and  captains  with 
their  seignories  of  12,000  acres,  as  holding  a  grant  of 
6ome  3000.  It  was  the  manor  and  castle  of  Kilcolman,  a 
ruined  house  of  the  Desmonds,  under  the  Galtee  Hills.  It 
appears  to  have  been  first  assigned  to  another  person.1 
But  it  came  at  last  into  Spenser's  hands,  probably  in 
1580;  and  henceforward  this  was  his  abode  and  his  home. 
Kilcolman  Castle  was  near  the  hi2Ji-road  between  Mai- 
low  and  Limerick,  about  three  miles  from  Buttevant  and 
Doneraile,  in  a  plain  at  the  foot  of  the  last  western  falls 
of  the  Galtee  range,  watered  by  a  stream  now  called  the 
Awbeg,  but  which  he  celebrates  under  the  name  of  the 
Mulla.  In  Spenser's  time  it  was  probably  surrounded  with 
woods.     The  earlier  writers  describe  it  as  a  pleasant  abode 

1  Carew  MSS.  Calendar,  1587,  p.  449.     Cf.  Irish  Papers ;  Calendar, 
1587,  p.  309,  450. 


in]  SPENSER  IN   IKELAND.  79 

with  fine  views,  and  so  Spenser  celebrated  its  natural  beau- 
ties. The  more  recent  accounts  are  not  so  favourable. 
"  Kilcolraan,"  says  the  writer  in  Murray's  Handbook,  "  is 
a  small  peel  tower,  with  cramped  and  dark  rooms,  a  form 
which  every  gentleman's  house  assumed  in  turbulent  times. 
It  is  situated  on  the  margin  of  a  small  lake,  and,  it  must 
be  confessed,  overlooking  an  extremely  dreary  tract  of 
country."  It  was  in  the  immediate  neighbourhood  of  the 
wild  country  to  the  north,  half  forest,  half  bog,  the  wood 
and  hill  of  Aharlo,  or  Arlo,  as  Spenser  writes  it,  which  was 
the  refuge  and  the  "great  fastness"  of  the  Desmond  re- 
bellion. It  was  amid  such  scenes,  amid  such  occupations, 
in  such  society  and  companionship,  that  the  poet  of  the 
Faerie  Queene  accomplished  as  much  of  his  work  as  was 
given  him  to  do.  In  one  of  his  later  poems,  he  thus  con- 
trasts the  peace  of  England  with  his  own  home : 

"  No  wayling  there  nor  wretchednesse  is  heard, 
No  bloodie  issues  nor  no  leprosies, 
No  griesly  famine,  nor  no  raging  sweard, 
No  nightly  bordrags  [=  border  ravage],  nor  no  hue  and  cries ; 
The  shepheards  there  abroad  may  safely  lie, 
Ou  hills  and  downes,  withoutcn  dread  or  daunger : 
No  ravenous  wolves  the  good  mans  hope  destroy, 
Nor  outlawes  fell  affray  the  forest  rauuger." 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE    FAERIE    QUEENE THE    FIRST    PART. 

[1580-1590.] 

Tns  Faerie  Queene  is  heard  of  very  early  in  Spenser's  lit- 
erary course.  We  know  that  in  the  beginning  of  1580, 
the  year  in  which  Spenser  went  to  Ireland,  something  un- 
der that  title  had  been  already  begun  and  submitted  to  Ga- 
briel  Harvey's  judgment;  and  that,  among  other  literary 
projects,  Spenser  was  intending  to  proceed  with  it.  But 
beyond  the  mere  name,  we  know  nothing,  at  this  time,  of 
Spenser's  proposed  Faerie  Queene.  Harvey's  criticisms 
on  it  tell  us  nothing  of  its  general  plan  or  its  numbers. 
Whether  the  first  sketch  bad  been  decided  upon,  whether 
the  new  stanza,  Spenser's  original  creation,  and  its  peculiar 
beauty  and  instrument,  had  yet  been  invented  by  him, 
while  lie  had  been  trying  experiments  in  metre  in  the 
Shepherd's  Calendar,  we  have  no  means  of  determining. 
But  he  took  the  idea  with  him  to  Ireland  ;  and  in  Ireland 
he  pursued  it  and  carried  it  out. 

The  first  authentic  account  which  we  have  of  the  com- 
position of  the  Faerie  Queene  is  in  a  pamphlet  written 
by  Spenser's  friend  and  predecessor  in  the  service  of  the 
Council  of  Munster,  Ludowick  Bryskett,  and  inscribed  to 
Lord  Grey  of  Wilton  :  a  Discourse  of  Civil  Life,  publish- 
ed in  1G0G.     He  describes  a  meeting  of  friends  at  his  cot- 


Our.  iv.]     THE  FAERIE  QUEENE— THE  FIRST  PART.  81 

tage  near  Dublin,  and  a  conversation  that  took  place  on 
the  "  ethical "  part  of  moral  philosophy.  The  company 
consisted  of  some  of  the  principal  Englishmen  employed 
in  Irish  affairs,  men  whose  names  occur  continually  in  the 
copious  correspondence  in  the  Rolls  and  at  Lambeth. 
There  was  Long,  the  Primate  of  Armagh  ;  there  were  Sir 
Robert  Dillon,  the  Chief  Justice  of  the  Common  Pleas, 
and  Dormer,  the  Queen's  Solicitor;  and  there  were  sol- 
diers, like  Thomas  Norreys,  then  Vice-President  of  Mini- 
ster, under  his  brother,  John  Xorreys;  Sir  Warham  Sent- 
leger,  on  whom  had  fallen  so  much  of  the  work  in  the 
South  of  Ireland,  and  who  at  last,  like  Thomas  Xorreys, 
fell  in  Tyrone's  rebellion  ;  Captain  Christopher  Carleil, 
Walsingham's  son-in-law,  a  man  who  had  gained  great 
distinction  on  land  and  sea,  not  only  in  Ireland,  but  in  the 
Low  Countries,  in  France,  and  at  Carthagena  and  San  Do- 
mingo; and  Captain  Nicholas  Daw  try,  the  Seneschal  of 
Clandeboy,  in  the  troublesome  Ulster  country,  afterwards 
"  Captain  "  of  Hampshire  at  the  time  of  the  Armada.  It 
was  a  remarkable  party.  The  date  of  this  meeting  must 
have  been  after  the  summer  of  1584,  at  which  time  Long 
was  made  Primate,"  and  before  the  beginning  of  1588, 
when  Dawtry  was  in  Hampshire.  The  extract  is  so  curi- 
ous, as  a  picture  of  the  intellectual  and  literary  wants  and 
efforts  of  the  times,  especially  amid  the  disorders  of  Ire- 
land, and  as  a  statement  of  Spenser's  purpose  in  his  poem, 
that  an  extract  from  it  deserves  to  be  inserted,  as  it  is  given 
in  Mr.  Todd's  Life  of  Spenser,  and  repeated  in  that  by  Mr. 
Hales. 

"Herein  do  I  greatly  envie,"  writes  Bryskett, " the  happiness  of 
the  Italians,  who  have  in  their  mother-tongue  late  writers  that  have, 
with  a  singular  easie  method  taught  all  that  Plato  and  Aristotle  have 


82  SPENSER.  [crup. 

confusedly  or  obscurely  left  written.  Of  which,  some  I  have  begun 
to  reade  with  no  small  delight ;  as  Alexander  Piccolomini,  Gio.  Bap- 
tista  Giraldi,  and  Guazzo ;  all  three  having  written  upon  the  Ethick 
part  of  Morall  Philosophic  both  exactly  and  perspicuously.  And 
would  God  that  some  of  our  countrimen  would  shew  themselves  so 
wel  affected  to  the  good  of  their  countrie  (whereof  one  principall  and 
most  important  part  consisteth  in  the  instructing  men  to  vertue),  as 
to  set  downe  in  English  the  precepts  of  those  parts  of  Morall  Philos- 
opjiie,  whereby  our  youth  might,  without  spending  so  much  time  as 
the  learning  of  those  other  languages  require,  speedily  enter  into  the 
right  course  of  vertuous  life. 

"  In  the  meane  while  I  must  struggle  with  those  bookes  which  I 
vnderstand  and  content  myselfe  to  plod  upon  them,  in  hope  that  God 
(who  kuoweth  the  sincerenessa  of  my  desire)  will  be  pleased  to  open 
my  vnderstanding,  so  as  I  may  reape  that  profit  of  my  reading,  which 
I  trauell  for.  Yet  is  there  a  gentleman  in  this  company,  whom  I  have 
had  often  a  purpose  to  intreate,  that  as  his  liesure  might  serue  him, 
he  would  vouchsafe  to  spend  some  time  with  me  to  instruct  me  in 
some  hard  points  which  I  cannot  of  myselfe  vnderstand  ;  knowing  him 
io  be  not  oncly  perfect  in  the  Greek  tongue,  but  also  very  well  read  in  Phi- 
losophic, both  morall  and  naturall.  Keuertheless  such  is  my  bashful- 
r.ess,  as  I  neucr  yet  durst  open  my  mouth  to  disclose  this  my  desire 
unto  him,  though  I  have  not  wanted  some  hartning  thereunto  from 
hiraselfe.  For  of  loue  and  kindnes  to  me,  he  encouraged  me  long  silh- 
ens  to  follow  the  reading  of  the  Grcckc  tongue,  and  offered  me  his  helpe 
to  make  me  vnderstand  it.  But  now  that  so  good  an  opportunitie  is 
offered  vnto  me,  to  satisfie  in  some  sort  my  desire  ;  I  thinke  I  should 
commit  a  great  fault,  not  to  myselfe  alone,  but  to  all  this  company,  if 
I  should  not  enter  my  request  thus  farre,  as  to  moue  him  to  spend 
this  time  which  we  have  now  destined  to  familiar  discourse  and 
conuersation,  in  declaring  unto  us  the  great  benefits  which  men  ob- 
taine  by  the  knowledge  of  Morall  Philosophic,  and  in  making  us  to 
know  what  the  same  is,  what  be  the  parts  thereof,  whereby  vcrtues 
are  to  be  distinguished  from  vices  ;  and  finally,  that  he  will  be  pleased 
to  run  ouer  in  such  order  as  he  shall  thinke  good,  such  and  so  many 
principles  and  rules  thereof,  as  shall  serue  not  only  for  my  better  in- 
struction, but  also  for  the  contentment  and  satisfaction  of  you  al. 
For  I  nothing  doubt,  but  that  euery  one  of  you  will  be  glad  to  heare 


iv.]  THE  FAERIE!  QUEENE— THE  FIRST  PART.  83 

so  profitable  a  discourse  and  thinke  the  time  very  wel  spent  wher- 
in  so  excellent  a  knowledge  shal  be  rcuealed  unto  you,  from  which 
euery  one  may  be  assured  to  gather  some  fruit  as  wel  as  myselfe. 

"  Therefore  (said  I),  turning  myselfe  to  31.  Spenser,  It  is  you,  sir,  to 
whom  it  pertaineth  to  shew  yourselfe  courteous  now  unto  vs  all  and 
to  make  vs  all  beholding  unto  you  for  the  pleasure  and  profit  which 
we  shall  gather  from  your  speeches,  if  you  shall  vouchsafe  to  open 
unto  vs  the  goodly  cabinet,  in  which  this  excellent  treasure  of  vertucs 
lieth  locked  up  from  the  vulgar  sort.  And  thereof  in  the  behalfe  of 
all  as  for  myselfe,  I  do  most  earnestly  intreate  you  not  to  say  vs  nay. 
Vnto  which  wordes  of  mine  euery  man  applauding  most  with  like 
words  of  request,  and  the  rest  with  gesture  and  countenances  ex- 
pressing as  much,  31.  Spenser  answered  in  this  maner :     ' 

"  '  Though  it  may  seeme  hard  for  me,  to  refuse  the  request  made  by 
you  all,  whom  euery  one  alone,  I  should  for  many  respects  be  willing 
to  gratifie ;  yet  as  the  case  standeth,  I  doubt  not  but  with  the  con- 
sent of  the  most  part  of  you,  I  shall  be  excused  at  this  time  of  this 
taske  which  would  be  laid  vpon  me ;  for  sure  I  am,  that  it  is  not  vn- 
knownc  vnto  you,  that  I  haue  alrecdy  vndertaken  a  work  tending  to 
the  same  effect,  which  is  in  hcroical  rose  under  the  title  of  a  Faerie 
Queene  to  represent  all  the  moral  vertues,  assigning  to  euery  vertue 
a  Knight  to  be  the  patron  and  defender  of  the  same,  in  whose  actions 
and  feates  of  arms  and  chiualry  the  operations  of  that  vertue,  where- 
of he  is  the  protector,  are  to  be  expressed,  and  the  vices  and  unruly 
appetites  that  oppose  themselves  against  the  same,  to  be  beaten  down 
and  ouercome.  Which  work,  as  I  have  already  well  enlred  into,  if 
God  shall  please  to  spare  me  life  that  I  may  finish  it  according  to 
my  mind,  your  wis!:  (31.  Bryskett)  will  be  in  some  sort  accomplished, 
though  perhaps  not  so  effectually  as  you  could  desire.  And  the  same 
may  very  well  seme  for  my  excuse,  if  at  this  time  I  craue  to  be  for- 
borne in  this  your  request,  since  any  discourse,  that  I  might  make 
thus  on  the  sudden  in  such  a  subject  would  be  but  simple,  and  little 
to  your  satisfactions.  For  it  would  require  good  aduiscment  and 
premeditation  for  any  man  to  vndertake  the  declaration  of  these 
points  that  you  have  proposed,  containing  in  effect  the  Ethicke  part 
of  Morall  Philosophic.  Whereof  since  I  haue  taken  in  hand  to  dis- 
course at  large  in  my  poeme  before  spoken,  I  hope  the  expectation 
cc  that  v;crk  mar  serue  to  free  me  at  this  time  from  speaking  in  that 


84  SPENSER,  [chap. 

matter,  notwithstanding  your  motion  and  all  your  intreaties.  But  I 
will  tell  you  how  I  tliinke  by  himselfe  he  may  very  well  excuse  my 
speech,  and  yet  satisfie  all  you  in  this  matter.  I  haue  seene  (as  he 
knoweth)  a  translation  made  by  himselfe  out  of  the  Italian  tongue  of 
a  dialogue  comprehending  all  the  Ethick  part  of  Moral  Philosophy 
written  by  one  of  those  three  he  formerly  mentioned,  and  that  is  by 
Giraldi  vnder  the  title  of  a  Dialogue  of  Ciuil  life.  If  it  please  him 
to  bring  us  forth  that  translation  to  be  here  read  among  vs,  or  oth- 
erwise to  deliuer  to  us,  as  his  memory  may  scrue  him,  the  contents 
of  the  same ;  he  slial  (I  warrant  you)  satisfie  you  all  at  the  ful,  and 
himselfe  wil  haue  no  cause  but  to  thinke  the  time  well  spent  in  re- 
uiewing  his  labors,  especially  in  the  company  of  so  many  his  friends, 
who  may  thereby  reape  much  profit,  and  the  translation  happily  fare 
the  better  by  sonic  mending  it  may  receiue  in  the  perusing,  as  all 
writings  else  may  do  by  the  often  examination  of  the  same.  Neither 
let  it  trouble  him  that  I  so  turnc  cuer  to  him  againe  the  taske  he 
wold  haue  put  me  to ;  for  it  falleth  out  fit  for  him  to  verifie  the  prin- 
cipall  of  all  this  Apologie,  euen  now  made  for  himselfe;  because  there- 
by it  will  appeare  that  he  hath  not  withdrawne  himselfe  from  sendee 
of  the  state  to  hue  idle  or  wholly  priuate  to  himselfe,  but  hath  spent 
some  time  in  doing  that  which  may  greatly  benefit  others,  and  hath 
serued  not  a  little  to  the  bettering  of  his  owne  mind,  and  increasing 
of  his  knowledge  ;  though  he  for  modesty  pretend  much  ignorance, 
and  pleade  want  in  wealth,  much  like  some  rich  beggars,  who  either 
of  custom,  or  for  couetousnes,  go  to  begge  of  others  those  things 
whereof  they  haue  no  want  at  home.' 

"  With  this  answer  of  M,  Spensers  it  seemed  that  all  the  company 
were  wel  satisfied,  for  after  some  few  speeches  whereby  they  had 
shewed  an  extreme  longing  after  his  worke  of  the  Fairie  Queene, 
whereof  some  parcels  had  been  by  some  of  them  seene,  they  all  began  to 
presse  me  to  produce  my  translation  mentioned  by  M.  Spenser  that  it 
might  be  perused  among  them ;  or  else  that  I  should  (as  near  as  I 
could)  deliuer  unto  them  the  contents  of  the  same,  supposing  that 
my  memory  would  not  much  faile  me  in  a  thing  so  studied  and  ad- 
visedly set  downc  in  writing  a3  a  translation  must  be." 

A  poet  at   this  time  still  had  to  justify   his  employ- 


lent  by  presenting 'TiTmsclf  in  the  character  of  a  professed 


rv.]  THE  FAERIE  QUEENE— THE  FIRST  TART.  '  85 

teacher  of  morality,  with  a  purpose  as  definite  amtformai. 
(hough  with  a   djffgj^ut  method,  as   the  preacher  in  the 
pulpjt.'  Even  with  this  profession,  he  had  to  encounter 
many  prejudices,  and  men  of  gravity  and  wisdom  shook 
their  heads  at  what  they  thought  his  idle  trifling.     But  if 
he  wished  to  be  counted  respectable,  and  to  separate  him- 
self from  the  crowd  of  foolish   or  licentious   rimers,  he 
must  intend  distinctly,  not  merely  to  interest,  but  to  in- 
struct, by  his  new  and  deep  conceits.     It  was  under  the 
influence  of  this  persuasion  that  Spenser  laid  down  the 
plan  of  the  Faerie   Queene.     It  was,  so  he  proposed  to  j 
himself,  to  be  a  work  on  moral,  and,  if  time  were  given 
him,  political  philosophy,  composed  with  as  serious  a  di- 
dactic aim,  as  any  treatise  or  sermon  in  prose.     He  deems  ! 
it  necessary  to  explain  and  excuse  his  work  by  claiming  ; 
for  it  this  design1.1    He  did  not  venture  to  send  the  Faerie 
Queene  into  the  world  without  also  telling  the  world  its 
moral  meaning  and  bearing.     He  cannot  trust  it  to  tell 
its  own  story  or  suggest  its  real  drift.     In  the  letter  to 
Sir  W.  Ralegh,  accompanying  the   first  portion   of  it,  he 
unfolds   elaborately  the    sense   of  his  allegory,  as  he  ex- 
pounded it  to  his  friends  in  Dublin.     "  To  some,"  he  says, 
"I  know  this  method  will   seem   displcasant,  which  had 
rather  have  good  discipline  delivered  plainly  by  way  of 
precept,  or  sermoned  at  large,  as  they  use,  than  thus  cloud-    "7 
ily  enwrapped  in  allegorical  devises."     lie  thought  that     \0 
Homer  and  Virgil  and  Ariosto  had  thus  written  poetry, 
to  teach   the   world  moral   virtue    and  political  wisdom. 
He   attempted   to   propitiate   Lord  Burghley,  who   hated 
him  and  his  verses,  by  setting  before  him  in  a  dedication 
sonnet,  the  true  intent  of  his — 

"  Idle  rimes  ; 
The  labour  of  lost  time  and  wit  unstaid ; 


& 


86  SPENSER.  [chap. 

Yet  if  their  deeper  sense  he  inly  weighed, 
And  the  dim  veil,  with  which  from  common  view 
Their  fairer  parts  are  hid,  aside  be  laid, 
Perhaps  not  vain  they  may  appear  to  you." 

In  earlier  and  in  later  times,  men  do  not  apologize  for 
being  poets ;  and  Spenser  himself  was  deceived  in  giving 
himself  credit  for  this  direct  purpose  to  instruct,  when  he 
was  really  following  the  course  marked  out  by  his  gen- 
His.  (But  he  only  conformed  to  the  curious  utilitarian 
spirit  which  pervaded  the  literature  of  the  time.^  Read- 
ers were  supposed  to  look  everywhere  for  a  moral  to  be 
drawn,  or  a  lesson  to  be  inculcated,  or  some  practical  rules 
to  be  avowedly  and  definitely  deduced ;  and  they  could 
not  yet  take  in  the  idea  that  the  exercise  of  the  specula- 
tive and  imaginative  faculties  may  be  its  own  end,  and 
may  have  indirect  influences  and  utilities  even  greater 
than  if  it  was  guided  by  a  conscious  intention  to  be  edi- 
fying and  instructive. 

The  first  great  English  poem  of  modern  times,  the  first 
creation  of  English  imaginative  power  since  Chaucer,  and 
like  Chaucer  so  thoroughly  and  characteristically  English, 
was  not  written  in  England.  Whatever  Spenser  may  have 
done  to  it  before  he  left  England  with  Lord  Grey,  and 
whatever  portions  of  earlier  composition  may  have  been 
used  and  worked  up  into  the  poem  as  it  went  on,  the 
bulk  of  the  Faerie  Qucene,  as  we  have  it,  was  composed 
in  what  to  Spenser  and  his  friends  was  almost  a  foreign 
land — in  the  conquered  and  desolated  wastes  of  wild  and 
barbarous  Ireland.  It  is  a  feature  of  his  work  on  which 
Spenser  himself  dwells.  In  the  verses  which  usher  in  his 
poem,  addressed  to  the  great  men  of  Elizabeth's  court,  he 
presents  his  work  to  the  Earl  of  Ormond,  as 


it.]  THE  FAERIE  QUEENE— THE  FIRST  PART.  87 

"  The  wild  fruit  which  salvage  soil  hath  bred  ; 
Which  being  through  long  wars  left  almost  waste, 
With  brutish  barbarism  is  overspread  ;" — 

and  in  the  same  strain  to  Lord  Grey,  be  speaks  of  his 
"  rude  rimes,  the  which  a  rustic  muse  did  weave,  in  salvage 
soil."  It  is  idle  to  speculate  what  difference  of  form  the 
Faerie  Queene  might  have  received,  if  the  design  had  been 
carried  out  in  the  peace  of  England  and  in  the  society  of 
London.  But  it  is  certain  that  the  scene  of  trouble  and 
danger  in  which  it  grew  up  greatly  affected  it.  fThis  may 
possibly  account,  though  it  is  questionable,  for  the  loose- 
ness of  texture,  and  the  want  of  accuracy  and  finish  which 
is  sometimes  to  be  seen  in  it.  Spenser  was  a  learned 
poet ;  and  his  poem  has  the  character  of  the  work  of  a 
man  of  wide  reading,  but  without  books  to  verify  or  cor- 
rect. It  cannot  be  doubted  that  his  life  in  Ireland  added 
to  the  force  and  vividness  with  which  Spenser  wrote,  j  In 
Ireland,  he  had  before  his  eyes  continually  the  dreary 
world  which  the  poet  of  knight-errantry  imagines.  There 
men  might  in  good  truth  travel  long  through  wildernesses 
and  "great  woods"  given  over  to  the  outlaw  and  the 
ruffian.  There  the  avenger  of  wrong  need  seldom  want 
for  perilous  adventure  and  the  occasion  for  quelling  the 
oppressor.  There  the  armed  and  unrelenting  hand  of 
right  was  but  too  truly  the  only  substitute  for  law.  There 
might  be  found  in  most  certain  and  prosaic  reality,  the 
ambushes,  the  disguises,  the  treacheries,  the  deceits  and 
temptations,  even  the  supposed  witchcrafts  and  enchant- 
ments, against  which  the  fairy  champions  of  the  virtues 
have  to  be  on  their  guard.  In  Ireland,  Englishmen  saw, 
or  at  any  rate  thought  they  saw,  a  universal  conspiracy  of 
fraud  against  righteousness,  a  universal  battle  going  on  be- 
tween error  and  religion,  between  justice  and  the  most  in- 


S3  SPENSER.  [chap. 

solent  selfishness.  They  found  there  every  type  of  what 
was  cruel,  brutal,  loathsome.  They  saw  everywhere  men 
whose  business  it  was  to  betray  and  destroy,  women  whose 
business  it  was  to  tempt  and  ensnare  and  corrrupt.  They 
thought  that  they  saw  too,  in  those  who  waged  the  Queen's 
wars,  all  forms  of  manly  and  devoted  gallantry,  of  noble 
generosity,  of  gentle  strength,  of  knightly  sweetness  and 
courtesy.  There  were  those,  too,  who  failed  in  the  hour 
of  trial ;  who  were  the  victims  of  temptation  or  of  the 
victorious  strength  of  evil.  Besides  the  open  or  concealed 
traitors  —  the  Desmonds,  and  Kildares,  and  O'Neales  — 
there  were  the  men  who  were  entrapped  and  overcome,  and 
the  men  who  disappointed  hopes,  and  became  recreants  to 
their  faith  and  loyalty  ;  like  Sir  William  Stanley,  who, 
after  a  brilliant  career  in  Ireland,  turned  traitor  and  apos- 
tate, and  gave  up  Deventer  and  his  Irish  bands  to  the 
King  of  Spain. 

The  realities  of  the  Irish  wars  and  of  Irish  social  and 
... 
political  life  gave  a  real  subject,  gave  body  and  form  to 

the  allegory.  There  in  actual  flesh  and  blood  were  ene- 
mies to  be  fought  with  by  the  good  and  true.  There  in 
visible  fact  were  the  vices  and  falsehoods,  -which  Arthur 
and  his  companions  were  to  quell  and  punish.  There 
in  living  truth  were  Sansfoy,  and  Sansloy,  and  Sansjoy  ; 
there  were  Oryoylio  and  Grantor  to,  the  witcheries  of 
Acrasia  and  Phcedria,  the  insolence  of  Brlana  and  Crudor. 
And  there,  too,  were  real  Knights  of  goodness  and  the 
Gospel — Grey,  and  Ormond,  and  Ralegh,  the  Norreyscs, 
St.  Lcgcr,  and  Maltby — on  a  real  mission  from  Gloriana's 
noble  realm  to  destroy  the  enemies  of  truth  and  virtue. J 

The  allegory  bodies  forth  the  trials  which  beset  the  life 
/of  man  in  all  conditions  and  at  all  times.     But  Spenser 
could  never  have  seen  in  England  such  a  strong  and  per- 


it.]  THE  FAERIE  QUEENE— THE  FIRST  PART.  89 

feet  image  of  the  allegory  itself — with  the  wild  wander- 
ings of  its  personages,  its  daily  chances  of  battle  and  dan- 
ger, its  hairbreadth  escapes,  its  strange  encounters,  its  pre- 
vailing anarchy  and  violence,  its  normal  absence  of  order 
and  law  —  as  he  had  continually  and  customarily  before 
him  in  Ireland.  "  The  curse  of  God  was  so  great,"  writes 
John  Hooker,  a  contemporary,  "  and  the  land  so  barren 
both  of  man  and  beast,  that  whosoever  did  travel  from  one 
end  to  the  other  of  all  Munster,  even  from  Waterford  to 
Smerwick,  about  six-score  miles,  he  should  not  meet  man, 
woman,  or  child,  saving  in  cities  or  towns,  nor  yet  see  any 
beast,  save  foxes,  wolves,  or  other  ravening  beasts,/  It  is 
the  desolation  through  which  Spenser's  knights  pursue 
their  solitary  way,  or  join  company  as  they  can.  Indeed, 
to  read  the  same  writer's  account,  for  instance,  of  Ralegh's 
adventures  with  the  Irish  chieftains,  his  challenges  and 
single  combats,  his  escapes  at  fords  and  woods,  is  like  read- 
ing bits  of  the  Faerie  Qucene  in  prose.  As  Spenser  chose 
to  write  of  knight-errantry,  his  picture  of  it  has  doubtless 
gained  in  truth  and  strengtli  by  his  very  practical  expe- 
rience of  what  such  life  as  he  describes  must  beJ  £The 
Faerie  Queene  might  almost  be  called  the  Epic  of  the  Eng- 
lish wars  in  Ireland  under  Elizabeth,  as  much  as  the  Epic 
of  English  virtue  and  valour  at  the  same  period^ 

At  the  Dublin  meeting  described  by  Bryskett,  some 
time  later  than  1584,  Spenser  had  already  "well  entered 
into"  his  work.  In  1589,  he  came  to  England,  bringing 
with  him  the  first  three  books;  and  early  in  1590,  they 
were  published.  Spenser  himself  has  told  us  the  story  of 
this  first  appearance  of  the  Faerie  Queene.  The  person 
who  discovered  the  extraordinary  work  of  genius  which 
was  growing  up  amid  the  turbulence  and  misery  and  de- 
spair of  Ireland,  and  who  once  more  brought  its  author 

5 


00  SPENSER.  [cuap. 

into  the  centre  of  English  life,  was  Walter  Ralegh.  Ealegh 
had  served  through  much  of  the  Munster  war.  He  had 
shown  in  Ireland  some  of  the  characteristic  points  of  his 
nature,  which  made  him  at  once  the  glory  and  shame  of 
English  manhood.  He  had  begun  to  take  a  prominent 
place  in  any  business  in  which  he  engaged.  He  bad 
shown  his  audacity,  his  self-reliance,  his  resource,  and  some 
signs  of  that  boundless  but  prudent  ambition  which  mark- 
ed his  career.  He  had  shown  that  freedom  of  tongue,  that 
restless  and  high-reaching  inventiveness,  and  that  tenacity 
of  opinion,  which  made  him  a  difficult  person  for  others 
to  work  with.  Like  so  many  of  the  English  captains,  he 
hated  Ormond,  and  saw  in  his  feud  with  the  Desmonds 
the  real  cause  of  the  hopeless  disorder  of  Munster.  But 
also  he  incurred  the  displeasure  and  suspicion  of  Lord 
Grey,  who  equally  disliked  the  great  Irish  Chief,  but  who 
saw  in  the  "  plot "  which  Ralegh  sent  to  Burghlcy  for  the 
pacification  of  Munster.  an  adventurer's  impracticable  and 
self-seeking  scheme.  "1  must  be  plain,"  he  writes,  "I 
like  neither  his  carriage  nor  his  company."  Ralegh  had 
been  at  Smerwick  :  he  had  been  in  command  of  one  of 
the  bands  put  in  by  Lord  Grey  to  do  the  execution.  On 
Lord  Grey's  departure  he  had  become  one  of  the  leading 
persons  among  the  undertakers  for  the  planting  of  Mun- 
ster. He  had  secured  for  himself  a  largo  share  of  the 
Desmond  lands.  In  1587,  an  agreement  among  the  un- 
dertakers assigned  to  Sir  Walter  Ralegh,  his  associates  and 
tenants,  three  seigniories  of  12,000  acres  apiece,  and  one 
of  6000,  in  Cork  and  Waterford.  But  before  Lord  Grey's 
departure  Ralegh  had  left  Ireland,  and  had  found  the  true 
field  for  his  ambition  in  the  English  court.  From  1582 
to  15S9  he  had  shared  with  Leicester  and  Hatton,  and 
afterwards  with  Essex,  the  special  favour  of  the  Queen. 


it.]  THE  FAERIE  QtEEXE— THE  FIRST  TART.  91 

He  had  become  Warden  of  the  Stannaries  and  Captain  of 
the  Guard.  He  had  undertaken  the  adventure  of  found- 
ing a  new  realm  in  America  under  the  name  of  Virginia. 
He  had  obtained  grants  of  monopolies,  farms  of  wines, 
Babington's  forfeited  estates.  His  own  great  ship,  which 
he  had  built,  the  Ark  Ralegh,  had  carried  the  flag  of  the 
High  Admiral  of  England  in  the  glorious  but  terrible  sum- 
mer of  1588.  He  joined  in  that  tremendous  sea -chase 
from  Plymouth  to  the  North  Sea,  when,  as  Spenser  wrote 
to  Lord  Howard  of  Effingham — 

"  Those  huge  castles  of  Castilian  King, 
That  vainly  threatened  kingdoms  to  displace, 
Like  flying  doves,  ye  did  before  you  chase." 

In  the  summer  of  1589,  Ralegh  had  been  busy,  as  men 
of  the  sea  were  then,  half  Queen's  servants,  half  bucca- 
neers, in  gathering  the  abundant  spoils  to  be  found  on  the 
high  seas ;  and  he  had  been  with  Sir  John  Norreys  and 
Sir  Francis  Drake  in  a  bootless  but  not  unprofitable  expe- 
dition to  Lisbon.  On  his  return  from  the  Portugal  voyage 
his  court  fortunes  underwent  a  change.  Essex,  who  had 
long  scorned  "that  knave  Ralegh,"  was  in  the  ascendant. 
Ralegh  found  the  Queen,  for  some  reason  or  another,  and 
reasons  were  not  hard  to  find,  offended  and  dangerous. 
He  bent  before  the  storm.  In  the  end  of  the  summer  of 
1589,  he  was  in  Ireland,  looking  after  his  large  seigniories, 
his  lawsuits  with  the  old  proprietors,  his  castle  at  Lismore, 
and  his  schemes  for  turning  to  account  his  woods  for 
the  manufacture  of  pipe  staves  for  the  French  and  Spanish 
wine  trade. 

He  visited  Spenser,  who  was  his  neighbour,  at  Kilcol- 
man,  and  the  visit  led  to  important  consequences.  The 
record  of  it  and  of  the  events  which  followed  is  preserved 


92  SPEXSER.  [chap. 

in  a  curious  poem  of  Spenser's  written  two  or  three  years 
later,  and  of  much  interest  in  regard  to  Spenser's  personal 
history.  Taking  up  the  old  pastoral  form  of  the  Shep- 
herd's Calendar,  with  the  familiar  rustic  names  of  the 
swains  who  figured  in  its  dialogues  —  Ilobbinol,  Cuddie, 
Rosalind,  and  his  own  Colin  Clout  —  he  described,  under 
the  usual  poetical  disguise,  the  circumstances  which  once 
more  took  him  back  from  Ireland  to  the  court.  The  court 
was  the  place  to  which  all  persons  wishing  to  push  their 
way  in  the  world  were  attracted.  It  was  not  only  the 
centre  of  all  power,  the  source  of  favours  and  honours,  the 
seat  of  all  that  swayed  the  destiny  of  the  nation.  It  was 
the  home  of  refinement,  and  wit,  and  cultivation  ;  the  place 
where  eminence  of  all  kinds  was  supposed  to  be  collected, 
and  to  which  all  ambitions,  literary  as  much  as  political, 
aspired.  It  was  not  only  a  royal  court ;  it  was  also  a 
great  club.  Spenser's  poem  shows  us  how  he  had  sped 
there,  and  the  impressions  made  on  his  mind  by  a  closer 
view  of  the  persons  and  the  ways  of  that  awful  and  daz- 
zling scene,  which  exercised  such  a  spell  upon  Englishmen, 
and  which  seemed  to  combine  or  concentrate  in  itself  the 
glory  and  the  goodness  of  heaven,  and  all  the  baseness  and 
malignity  of  earth.  The  occasion  deserved  a  full  celebra- 
tion ;  it  was  indeed  a  turning-point  in  his  life,  for  it  led  to 
the  publication  of  the  Faerie  Qucene,  and  to  the  immediate 
and  enthusiastic  recognition  by  the  Englishmen  of  the  time 
of  his  unrivalled  pre-eminence  as  a  poet.  In  this  poetical 
record,  Colin  Cloufs  come  home  again,  containing  in  it 
history,  criticism,  satire,  personal  recollections,  love  pas- 
sages, we  have  the  picture  of  his  recollections  of  the  flush 
and  excitement  of  those  months  which  saw  the  first  ap- 
pearance of  the  Faerie  Queene.  He  describes  the  inter- 
ruption of  his  retired  and,  as  he  paints  it,  peaceful  and 


IV.]  THE  FAERIE  QUEEXE— THE  FIRST  PART.  93 

pastoral  life  in  his  Irish  home,  by  the  appearance  of  Ra- 
legh, the  "  Shepherd  of  the  Ocean,"  from  "  the  main  sea 
deep."  They  may  have  been  thrown  together  before. 
Both  had  been  patronized  by  Leicester.  Both  had  been 
together  at  Smerwick,  and  probably  in  other  passages  of 
the  Munster  war ;  both  had  served  under  Lord  Grey,  Spen- 
ser's master,  though  he  had  been  no  lover  of  Ralegh.  In 
their  different  degrees,  Ralegh  with  his  two  or  three  seign- 
iories of  half  a  county,  and  Spenser  with  his  more  mod- 
est estate,  they  were  embarked  in  the  same  enterprise,  the 
plantation  of  Munster.  But  Ralegh  now  appeared  before 
Spenser  in  all  the  glory  of  a  brilliant  favourite — the  soldier, 
the  explorer,  the  daring  sea-captain,  the  founder  of  planta- 
tions across  the  ocean,  and  withal,  the  poet,  the  ready  and 
eloquent  discourser,  the  true  judge  and  measurer  of  what 
was  great  or  beautiful. 

The  time,  too,  was  one  at  once  of  excitement  and  repose. 
Men  felt  as  they  feel  after  a  great  peril,  a  great  effort,  a 
great  relief;  as  the  Greeks  did  after  Salamis  and  Platsea, 
as  our  fathers  did  after  AVaterloo.  In  the  struggle  in  the 
Channel  with  the  might  of  Spain,  England  had  recognized 
its  force  and  its  prospects.  One  of  those  solemn  moments 
had  just  passed  when  men  see  before  them  the  course  of 
the  world  turned  one  way,  when  it  might  have  been  turned 
another.  All  the  world  had  been  looking  out  to  see  what 
would  come  to  pass ;  and  nowhere  more  eagerly  than  in 
Ireland.  Every  one,  English  and  Irish  alike,  stood  agaze 
to  "  see  how  the  game  would  be  played."  The  great  fleet, 
as  it  drew  near,  "worked  wonderfully  uncertain  yet  calm 
humours  in  the  people,  not  daring  to  disclose  their  real  in- 
tention." When  all  was  decided,  and  the  distressed  ships 
were  cast  away  on  the  western  coast,  the  Irish  showed  as 
much  zeal  as  the  English  in  fulfilling  the  orders  of  iho 


94  SPENSER.  [chap. 

Irish  council,  to  "  apprehend  and  execute  all  Spaniards 
found  there  of  what  quality  soever."  These  were  the  im- 
pressions under  which  the  two  men  met.  Raleffh,  at  the 
moment,  was  under  a  cloud.  In  the  poetical  fancy  picture 
set  before  us — ■ 

"  His  song  was  all  a  lamentable  lay 
Of  great  unkindnesse,  and  of  usage  hard, 
Of  Cynthia  the  Ladie  of  the  Sea, 
Which  from  her  presence  faultlesse  him  debard. 
And  ever  and  anon,  with  singults  rife, 
He  cryed  out,  to  make  his  undersong ; 
Ah !  my  loves  queene,  and  goddesse  of  my  life, 
Who  shall  me  pittie,  when  thou  doest  me  wrong  ?" 

At  Kilcolman,  Ralegh  became  acquainted  with  what 
Spenser  had  done  of  the  Faerie  Queene.  His  rapid  and 
clear  judgment  showed  him  how  immeasurably  it  rose 
above  all  that  had  yet  been  produced  under  the  name  of 
poetry  in  England.  That  alone  is  sufficient  to  account 
for  his  eager  desire  that  it  should  be  known  in  England. 
But  Ralegh  always  had  an  eye  to  his  own  affairs,  marred 
as  they  so  often  were  by  ill-fortune  and  his  own  mistakes ; 
and  he  may  have  thought  of  making  his  peace  with  Cyn- 
thia by  reintroducing  at  Court  the  friend  of  Philip  Sidney, 
now  ripened  into  a  poet  not  unworthy  of  Gloriana's  great- 
ness.    This  is  Colin  Clout's  account : 

"  When  thus  our  pipes  we  both  had  wearied  well, 
(Quoth  he)  and  each  an  end  of  singing  made, 
He  gan  to  cast  great  lyking  to  my  lore, 
And  great  dislyking  to  my  lucklesse  lot, 
That  banisht  had  my  selfe,  like  v.ight  forlore, 
Into  that  waste,  where  I  was  quite  forgot. 
The  which  to  leave,  thenceforth  he  counseld  mee, 
Unmeet  for  man,  in  whom  was  aught  regardfull, 


it.]  THE  FAERIE  QUEEXE— THE  FIRST  PART.  95 

And  wend  with  him,  his  Cynthia  to  see : 

Vrhose  grace  was  great,  and  bounty  most  rewardfull; 

Besides  her  pecrlesse  skill  in  making  well, 

And  all  the  ornaments  of  wondrous  wit, 

Such  as  all  womankynd  did  far  excell, 

Such  as  the  world  admyr'd,  and  praised  it. 

So  what  with  hope  of  good,  and  hate  of  ill, 

He  me  perswaded  forth  with  him  to  fare. 

Nought  tooke  I  with  me,  but  mine  oaten  quill : 

Small  needments  else  need  shepheard  to  prepare. 

So  to  the  sea  we  came ;  the  sea,  that  is 

A  world  of  waters  heaped  up  on  hie, 

Rolling  like  mountaines  in  wide  wildernesse, 

Horrible,  hideous,  roaring  with  hoarse  crie." 

This  is  followed  by  a  spirited  description  of  a  sea-voy- 
age, and  of  tliat  empire  of  the  seas  in  which,  since  the 
overthrow  of  the  Armada,  England  and  England's  mis- 
tress were  now  claiming  to  be  supreme,  and  of  which 
Ralegh  was  one  of  the  most  active  and  distinguished 
officers : 

"  And  yet  as  ghastly  dreadfull,  as  it  seemes, 
Bold  men,  presuming  life  for  gaine  to  sell, 
Dare  tempt  that  gulf,  and  in  those  wandring  stremes 
Seek  waies  unknowne,  waies  leading  down  to  hell. 
For,  as  we  stood  there  waiting  on  the  strond, 
Behold !  an  huge  great  vessell  to  us  came, 
Dauncing  upon  the  waters  back  to  lond, 
As  if  it  scornd  the  daunger  of  the  same  ; 
Yet  was  it  but  a  wooden  frame  and  fraile, 
Glewed  togither  with  some  subtile  matter. 
Yet  had  it  armes  and  wings,  and  head  and  taile, 
And  life  to  moTe  it  selfe  upon  the  water. 
Strange  thing !  how  bold  and  swift  the  monster  was, 
That  neither  car'd  for  wind,  nor  haile,  nor  raine, 
Nor  swelling  waves,  but  thorough  them  did  passe 
So  proudly,  that  she  made  them  roare  againe. 


96  SPENSER,  [chap. 

The  same  aboord  us  gently  did  receave, 
And  without  hanne  us  ?arre  away  did  beare, 
So  farre  that  land,  our  mother,  us  did  leave, 
And  nought  but  sea  and  heaven  to  us  appeare. 
Then  hartlesse  quite,  and  full  of  inward  feare, 
That  shepheard  I  besought  to  me  to  tell, 
Under  what  skie,  or  in  what  world  we  were, 
In  which  I  saw  no  living  people  dwell. 
Who,  me  recomforting  all  that  he  might, 
Told  me  that  that  same  was  the  Regiment 
Of  a  great  Shepheardesse,  that  Cynthia  hight, 
His  liege,  his  Ladie,  and  his  lifes  Regent." 

This  is  the  poetical  version  of  Ralegh's  appreciation  of 
the  treasure  which  ho  had  lighted  on  in  Ireland,  and  of 
what  he  did  to  make  it  known  to  the  admiration  and  de- 
light of  England.  He  returned  to  the  Court,  and  Spenser 
with  him.  Again,  for  what  reason  we  know  not,  he  was 
received  into  favour.  The  poet,  who  accompanied  him, 
was  brought  to  the  presence  of  the  lady,  who  saw  herself 
in  "  various  mirrors  " — Cynthia,  Gloriana,  Belphoebe,  as  she 
heard  him  read  portions  of  the  great  poem  which  was  to 
add  a  new  glory  to  her  reign. 

"  The  Shepheard  of  the  Ocean  (quoth  he) 
Unto  that  Goddesse  grace  me  first  enhanced, 
And  to  mine  oaten  pipe  enclin'd  her  eare, 
That  she  thenceforth  therein  gan  take  delight; 
And  it  desir'd  at  timely  houres  to  heare, 
All  were  my  notes  but  rude  and  roughly  dight ; 
For  not  by  measure  of  her  owne  great  mynde, 
And  wondrous  worth,  she  mott  my  simple  song, 
But  joyd  that  country  shepheard  ought  could  fynd 
Worth  barkening  to,  cmongst  the  learned  throng." 

He  had  already  too  well  caught  the  trick  of  flattery — 
flattery  in  a  degree  almost  inconceivable  to  us — which  the 


iv.]  THE  FAERIE  QUEEXE— THE  FIRST  PART.  97 

fashions  of  the  time,  and  the  Queen's  strange  self-deceit, 
exacted  from  the  loyalty  and  enthusiasm  of  Englishmen. 
In  that  art  Ralegh  was  only  too  apt  a  teacher.  Colin 
Clout,  in  his  story  of  his  recollections  of  the  Court,  lets 
us  see  how  he  was  taught  to  think  and  to  speak  there : 

"  But  if  I  her  like  ought  on  earth  might  read, 
I  would  her  lyken  to  a  crowne  of  lillies, 
Upon  a  virgin  brydes  adorned  head, 
"With  Roses  dight  and  Goolds  and  Daffadillies  ; 
Or  like  the  circlet  of  a  Turtle  true, 
In  which  all  colours  of  the  rainbow  bee ; 
Or  like  faire  Phebes  garlond  shining  new, 
In  which  all  pure  perfection  one  may  see. 
But  vaine  it  is  to  thinke,  by  paragone 
Of  earthly  things,  to  judge  of  things  divine: 
Her  power,  her  mercy,  her  wisdome,  none 
Can  deeme,  but  who  the  Godhead  can  define. 
Why  then  do  I,  base  shepheard,  bold  and  blind, 
Presume  the  things  so  sacred  to  prophane  ? 
More  fit  it  is  t'  adore,  with  humble  mind, 
The  image  of  the  heavens  in  shape  humane." 

The  Queen,  who  heard  herself  thus  celebrated,  celebrated 
not  only  as  a  semi-divine  person,  but  as  herself  unrivalled 
in  the  art  of  "making"  or  poetry— "  her  peerless  skill  in 
making  well" — granted  Spenser  a  pension  of  50Z.  a  year, 
which,  it  is  said,  the  prosaic  and  frugal  Lord  Treasurer, 
always  hard-driven  for  money  and  not  caring  much  for 
poets,  made  difficulties  about  paying.  But  the  new  poem 
was  not  for  the  Queen's  ear  only.  In  the  registers  of  the 
Stationers'  Company  occurs  the  following  entry  : 

"  Primo  die  Decembris  [1589]. 
"Mr.  Ponsonbye  —  Entered  for  his  Copye,  a  book  intytuled  the 
fayrye  Queene  dysposed  into  xij  bookes  &c,  authorysed  under  thandes 
of  the  Archbishop  of  Cante-bery  and  bothe  the  Wardens.        vjd-" 


98  SEENSER.  [chap. 

Thus,  between  pamphlets  of  the  hour — an  account  of  the 
Arms  of  the  City  Companies  on  one  side,  and  the  last 
news  from  France  on  the  other — the  first  of  our  great 
modern  English  poems  was  licensed  to  make  its  appear- 
ance. It  appeared  soon  after,  with  the  date  of  1590.  It 
was  not  the  twelve  boohs,  but  only  the  first  three.  It  Avas 
accompanied  and  introduced,  as  usual,  by  a  great  host  of 
commendatory  and  laudatory  sonnets  and  poems.  All  the 
leading  personages  at  Elizabeth's  court  were  appealed  to ; 
according  to  their  several  tastes  or  their  relations  to  the 
poet,  they  are  humbly  asked  to  befriend,  or  excuse,  or  wel- 
come his  poetical  venture.  The  list  itself  is  worth  quot- 
ing : — Sir  Christopher  Ilatton,  then  Lord  Chancellor,  the 
Earls  of  Essex,  Oxford,  Northumberland,  Ormond,  Lord 
Howard  of  Effingham,  Lord  Grey  of  Wilton,  Sir  Walter 
Ralegh,  Lord  Burghley,  the  Earl  of  Cumberland,  Lord 
Ilunsdon,  Lord  Buckhurst,  Walsingham,  Sir  John  Norris, 
President  of  Munster.  He  addresses  Lady  Pembroke,  in 
remembrance  of  her  brother,  that  "  heroic  spirit,"  "  the 
glory  of  our  days," 

"Who  first  my  Muse  did  lift  out  of  the  floor, 
To  sing  his  sweet  delights  in  lowly  lays." 

And  he  finishes  with  a  sonnet  to  Lady  Carew,  one  of  Sir 
John  Spencer's  daughters,  and  another  to  "  all  the  gracious 
and  beautiful  ladies  of  the  Court,"  in  which  "  the  world's 
pride  seems  to  be  gathered."  There  come  also  congratu- 
lations and  praises  for  himself.  Ralegh  addressed  to  him 
a  fine  but  extravagant  sonnet,  in  which  he  imagined  Pe- 
trarch weeping  for  envy  at  the  approval  of  the  Faerie 
Queene, while  "Oblivion  laid  him  down  on  Laura's  hearse," 
and  even  Homer  trembled  for  his  fame.  Gabriel  Harvey 
revoked  his  judgment  on  the  filvish  Queen,  and,  not  with- 


it.]  THE  FAERIE  QUEENE— THE  FIRST  FART.  99 

out  some  regret  for  less  ambitious  days  in  the  past,  cheered 
on  his  friend  in  his  noble  enterprise.  Gabriel  Harvey 
has  been  so  much,  and  not  without  reason,  laughed  at, 
and  yet  his  verses  -welcoming  the  Faerie  Queene  are  so 
full  of  true  and  warm  friendship,  and  of  unexpected  re- 
finement and  grace,  that  it  is  but  just  to  cite  them.  In 
the  eves  of  the  world  he  was  an  absurd  personage  :  but 
Spenser  saw  in  him  perhaps  his  worthiest  and  trustiest 
friend.  A  generous  and  simple  affection  has  almost  got 
the  better  in'  them  of  pedantry  and  false  taste. 

"  Collyn,  I  see,  by  thy  new  taken  taske, 

Some  sacred  fury  katk  enrickt  thy  braynes, 
That  leades  thy  muse  in  haughty  verse  to  maske, 

And  loath  the  layes  that  longs  to  lowly  swaynes ; 
That  lifts  thy  notes  from  Shepheardes  unto  kinges  : 
So  like  the  lively  Larke  that  mounting  singes. 

"  Thy  lovely  Rosolinde  seemes  now  forlorne, 
And  all  thy  gentle  flockes  forgotten  quight : 

Thy  chaunged  hart  now  holdes  thy  pypes  in  scorne, 
Those  prety  pypes  that  did  thy  mates  delight ; 

Those  trusty  mates,  that  loved  thee  so  well ; 

Whom  thou  gav'st  mirth,  as  they  gave  thee  the  bell. 

"  Yet,  as  thou  earst  with  thy  sweete  roundelayes 
Didst  stirre  to  glee  our  laddes  in  homely  bowers  ; 

So  moughtst  thou  now  in  these  refyned  layes 
Delight  the  daintie  eares  of  higher  powers : 

And  so  mought  they,  in  their  deepe  skanning  skill, 

Alow  and  grace  our  Collyns  flowing  quyll. 

"  And  f aire  befall  that  Faerie  Queene  of  thine, 

In  whose  faire  eyes  love  linckt  with  vertue  sittes ; 
Enfusing,  by  those  bewtiea  fyers  devyne, 

Such  high  conceites  into  thy  humble  wittes, 
As  raised  hath  poore  pastors  oaten  reedes 
From  rustick  tunes,  to  chaunt  heroique  deedes. 


100  SPENSER.  [chap. 

"  So  mougbt  thy  Bedcrosse  Knight  with  happy  hand 

Victorious  be  in  that  faire  Hands  right, 
Which  thou  dost  vayle  in  Type  of  Faery  land, 

Elizas  blessed  field,  that  Albion  hight : 
That  shieldes  her  f riendes,  and  warres  her  mightie  foes, 
Yet  still  with  people,  peace,  and  plentie  flowes. 

"  But  (jolly  shepheard)  though  with  pleasing  style 
Thou  feast  the  humour  of  the  Courtly  trayne, 
Let  not  conceipt  thy  setled  sence  beguile, 

Ne  daunted  be  through  envy  or  disdaine. 
Subject  thy  dome  to  her  Empyring  spright, 
From  whence  thy  Muse,  and  all  the  world,  takes  light. 

"  Hobynoll." 

And  to  the  Queen  herself  Spenser  presented  his  work, 
in  one  of  the  boldest  dedications  perhaps  ever  penned : 

"To 
The  Most  High,  Mightie,  and  Magnificent 
Empresse, 
Renowmed  for  piety,  vertve,  and  all  gratiovs  government, 
ELIZABETH, 
By  the  Grace  of  God, 
Qveene  of  England,  Fravnce,  and  Ireland,  and  of  Virginia, 
Defendovr  of  the  Faith,  &c. 
Her  most  hvmble  Servavnt 
Edmvnd  Sfenser, 
Doth,  in  all  hvmilitie, 
Dedicate,  present,  and  consecrate 
These  his  labovrs, 
To  live  with  the  eternitie  of  her  fame." 

"  To  live  with  the  eternity  of  her  fame  " — the  claim  was 
a  proud  one,  but  it  has  proved  a  prophecy.  The  publica- 
tion of  the  Faerie  Queene  placed  him  at  once  and  for  his 
life-time  at  the  head  of  all  living  English  poets.  The  world 
of  his  day  immediately  acknowledged  the  charm  and  per- 


iv.]  THE  FAERIE  QUEEXE— THE  FIRST  PART.  101 

fection  of  the  new  work  of  art  which  had  taken  it  by  sur- 
prise. As  far  as  appears,  it  was  welcomed  heartily  and 
generously.  Spenser  speaks  in  places  of  envy  and  detrac- 
tion, and  he,  like  others,  had  no  doubt  his  rivals  and  ene- 
mies. But  little  trace  of  censure  appears,  except  in  the 
stories  about  Burghley's  dislike  of  him,  as  an  idle  rimer, 
and  perhaps  as  a  friend  of  his  opponents.  But  his  brother 
poets,  men  like  Lodge  and  Drayton,  paid  honour,  though 
in  quaint  phrases,  to  the  learned  Colin,  the  reverend  Colin, 
the  excellent  and  cunning  Colin.  A  greater  than  they,  if 
we  may  trust  his  editors,  takes  him  as  the  representative 
of  poetry,  which  is  so  dear  to  him. 

"  If  music  and  sweet  poetry  agree, 
As  they  must  needs,  the  sister  and  the  brother, 
Then  must  the  love  be  great  'twixt  thee  and  me, 
Because  thou  lov'st  the  one,  and  I  the  other. 
Dowland  to  thee  is  dear,  whose  heavenly  touch 
Upon  the  lute  doth  ravish  human  sense ; 
Spenser  to  me,  whose  deep  conceit  is  such 
As  passing  all  conceit,  needs  no  defence. 
Thou  lov'st  to  hear  the  sweet  melodious  sound 
That  Phoebus'  lute,  the  queen  of  music,  makes ; 
And  I  in  deep  delight  am  chiefly  drown'd 
Whenas  himself  to  singing  he  betakes. 
One  god  is  god  of  both,  as  poets  feign ; 
One  knight  loves  both,  and  both  in  thee  remain." 

(Shakesjwe,  in  the  "Passionate  Pilgrim,'1''  1599.) 

Even  the  fierce  pamphleteer,  Thomas  Nash,  the  scourge 
and  torment  of  poor  Gabriel  Harvey,  addresses  Harvey's 
friend  as  heavenly  Spenser,  and  extols  "  the  Faerie  Sing- 
ers' stately  tuned  verse."  Spenser's  title  to  be  the  "  Poet 
of  poets"  was  at  once  acknowledged  as  by  acclamation. 
And  he  himself  has  no  difficulty  in  accepting  his  position. 
In  some  lines  on  the  death  of  a  friend's  wife,  whom  lie  la- 


102  SPENSER.  [chap. 

ments  and  praises,  the  idea  presents  itself  that  the  great 
queen  may  not  approve  of  her  Shepherd  wasting  his  lays 
on  meaner  persons,  and  he  puts  into  his  friend's  mouth  a 
deprecation  of  her  possible  jealous}*.  The  lines  are  charac- 
teristic, both  in  their  beauty  and  music,  and  in  the  strange- 
ness, in  our  eyes,  of  the  excuse  made  for  the  poet. 

"Ne  let  Eliza,  royall  Shephcardcsse, 
The  praises  of  my  parted  love  envy, 
For  she  hath  praises  in  all  plenteousnessc 
Powr'd  upon  her,  like  showers  of  Castaly, 
By  her  own  Shepheard,  Colin,  her  owne  Shepheard, 
That  her  with  heavenly  hymnes  doth  deifie, 
Of  rustick  muse  full  hardly  to  be  betterd. 

"  She  is  the  E.ose,  the  glorie  of  the  day, 
And  mine  the  Primrose  in  the  lowly  shade : 
Mine,  ah  !  not  mine  ;  amissc  I  mine  did  say: 
Not  mine,  but  His,  which  mine  awhile  her  made ; 
Mine  to  be  His,  with  him  to  live  for  ay. 
0  that  so  faire  a  flower  so  soone  should  fade, 
And  through  untimely  tempest  fall  away ! 

"  She  fell  away  in  her  first  ages  spring, 
Whil'st  yet  her  leafe  was  greene,  and  fresh  her  rinde, 
And  whils^her  braunch  faire  blossomes  foorth  did  bring, 
She  fell  away  against  all  course  of  kinde. 
For  age  to  dye  is  right,  but  youth  is  wrong ; 
She  fel  away  like  fruit  blowne  downe  with  winde. 
"Weepe,  Shepheard  !  weepe,  to  make  my  undersong." 

Thits  in  both  his  literary  enterprises  Spenser  had  been 
signally  successful.  The  Shepherd's  Calendar,  in  1580,  had 
immediately  raised  high  hopes  of  his  powers.  The  Faerie 
Q'uecne,  in  1590,  had  more  than  fulfilled  them.  In  the 
interval  a  considerable  change  had  happened  in  English 
cultivation.  Shakcsperc  had  come  to  London,  though  the 
world  did  not  yet. know  all  yiat  he  was.     Sidney  had  pub- 


iv.]  THE  FAERIE  QUEEXE— THE  FIRST  PART.  103 

lished  Lis  Defense  of  Poesie,  and  had  written  the  Arcadia, 
though  it  was  not  yet  published.  Marlowe  had  begun  to 
write,  and  others  beside  him  were  preparing  the  change 
which  was  to  come  on  the  English  Drama.  Two  scholars 
who  had  shared  with  Spenser  in  the  bounty  of  Robert  Now- 
cll  were  beginning,  in  different  lines,  to  raise  the  level  of 
thought  and  style.  Hooker  was  beginning  to  give  dignity 
to  controversy,  and  to  show  what  English  prose  might  rise 
to.  Lancelot  Andrewes,  Spenser's  junior  at  school  and 
college,  was  training  himself  at  St.  Paul's  to  lead  the  way 
to  a  larger  and  higher  kind  of  preaching  than  the  English 
clergy  had  yet  reached.  The  change  of  scene  from  Ireland 
to  the  centre  of  English  interests  must  have  been,  as  Spen- 
ser describes  it,  very  impressive.  England  was  alive  with 
aspiration  and  effort:  imaginations  were  inflamed  and 
hearts  stirred  by  the  deeds  of  men  who  described  with  the 
same  energy  with  which  they  acted.  Amid  such  influences 
and  with  such  a  friend  as  Ralegh,  Spenser  may  naturally 
have  been  tempted  by  some  of  the  dreams  of  advancement 
of  which  Ralegh's  soul  was  full.  There  is  strong  prob- 
ability, from  the  language  of  his  later  poems,  that  he  in- 
dulged such  hopes,  and  that  they  were  disappointed.  A 
year  after  the  entry  in  the  Stationers'  Register  of  the 
Faerie  Queene  (29  Dec,  1590),  Ponsonby,  his  publisher, 
entered  a  volume  of  Comjrfaints,  containing  sundry  small 
poems  of  the  World's  Vanity,"  to  which  he  prefixed  the 
following  notice : 

"  TnE  Printer  to  the  Gextle  Reader. 

"Sin-ce  my  late  setting  foorth  of  the  Faerie  Queene,  finding  that  it 
hath  found  a  favourable  passage  amongst  you,  I  have  sithence  endcv" 
oured  by  all  good  meanes  (for  the  better  encrcase  and  accomplishment 
of  your  delights),  to  get  into  my  handes  such  smale  Poemes  of  the 
same  Authors,  as  I  heard  were  disperst  abroad  in  sundrie  hands,  and 


104  SPENSER.  [chap. 

not  casie  to  bee  come  by,  by  bimselfe ;  some  of  them  paving  bene 
diverslie  imbeziled  and  purloyned  from  him  since  his  departure  over 
Sea.  Of  the  which  I  have,  by  good  meanes,  gathered  togeather  these 
fewe  parcels  present,  which  I  have  caused  to  bee  imprinted  alto- 
gcather,  for  that  they  al  seeme  to  containe  like  matter  of  argument 
in  them  ;  being  all  complaints  and  meditations  of  the  worlds  vanitie, 
verie  grave  and  profitable.  To  which  effect  I  understand  that  he  be- 
sides wrote  sundrie  others,  namelie  Ecclcsiastcs  and  Canticum  cantico- 
riim,  translated  A  seniglds  dumber,  TJie  hell  of  lovers,  his  Purgatorie, 
being  all  dedicated  to  Ladies ;  so  as  it  may  seeme  he  ment  them  all 
to  one  volume.  Besides  some  other  Pamphlets  looselie  scattered 
abroad :  as  The  dying  Pellican,  The  hoivers  of  the  Lord,  The  sacrifice 
of  a  sinner,  The  seven  Psalmcs,  &c,  which,  when  I  can,  either  by  him- 
selfe  or  otherwise,  attaine  too,  I  meane  likewise  for  your  favour  sake 
to  set  foorth.  In  the  meane  time,  praying  you  gentlie  to  accept  of 
these,  and  graciouslie  to  entertaine  the  new  Poet,  I  take  leave." 

The  collection  is  a  miscellaneous  one,  both  as  to  subjects 
and  date  :  it  contains,  among  other  things,  the  translations 
from  Petrarch  and  Du  Bellay,  which  had  appeared  in  Van- 
der  Noodt's  Theatre  of  Worldlings,  in  1569.  But  there 
are  also  some  pieces  of  later  date ;  and  they  disclose  not 
only  personal  sorrows  and  griefs,  but  also  an  experience 
which  had  ended  in  disgust  and  disappointment.  In  spite 
of  Ralegh's  friendship,  he  had  found  that  in  the  Court  he 
was  not  likely  to  thrive.  The  two  powerful  men  who  had 
been  his  earliest  friends  had  disappeared.  Philip  Sidney 
had  died  in  1586;  Leicester,  soon  after  the  destruction  of 
the  Armada,  in  1588.  And  they  had  been  followed  (April, 
1590)  by  Sidney's  powerful  father-in-law,  Francis  AValsing- 
ham.  The  death  of  Leicester,  untended,  unlamented,  pow- 
erfully impressed  Spenser,  always  keenly  alive  to  the  pa- 
thetic vicissitudes  of  human  greatness.  In  one  of  these 
pieces,  The  Ruins  of  Time,  addressed  to  Sidney's  sister, 
the  Countess  of  Pembroke,  Spenser  thus  imagines  the 
death  of  Leicester — 


iv.]  THE  FAERIE  QUEEXE— THE  FIRST  FART.  10a 

"  It  is  not  long,  since  these  two  eyes  beheld 
A  mightie  Prince,  of  most  renownied  race, 
Whom  England  hiirh  in  count  of  honour  held, 
And  greatest  ones  did  sue  to  gaine  his  grace ; 
Of  greatest  ones  he,  greatest  in  his  place, 
Sate  in  the  bosome  of  his  Soveraine, 
And  Rigid  and  loyall  did  his  word  maintaine. 

"  I  saw  him  die,  I  saw  him  die,  as  one 
Of  the  meane  people,  and  brought  foorth  on  beare ; 
I  saw  him  die,  and  no  man  left  to  mone 
His  dolefull  fate,  that  late  him  loved  deare  : 
Scarse  anie  left  to  close  his  eyelids  neare ; 
Scarse  anie  left  upon  his  lips  to  laie 
The  sacred  sod,  or  Requiem  to  saie. 

"  0  !  trustless  state  of  miserable  men, 
That  builde  your  blis  on  hope  of  earthly  thing, 
And  vainlie  thinke  your  selves  halfe  happie  then, 
When  painted  faces  with  smooth  nattering 
Doo  fawne  on  you,  and  your  wide  praises  sing ; 
And,  when  the  courting  masker  louteth  lowe, 
Him  true  in  heart  and  trustie  to  you  trow." 

For  Sidney,  the  darling  of  the  time,  who  had  been  to 
him  not  merely  a  cordial  friend,  but  the  realized  type  of 
all  that  was  glorious  in  manhood,  and  beautiful  in  charac- 
ter and  gifts,  his  mourning  was  more  than  that  of  a  look- 
er-on at  a  moving  instance  of  the  frailty  of  greatness.  It 
was  the  poet's  sorrow  for  the  poet,  who  had  almost  been  to 
him  what  the  elder  brother  is  to  the  younger.  Both  now, 
and  in  later  years,  his  affection  for  one  who  was  become 
to  him  a  glorified  saint,  showed  itself  in  deep  and  genuine 
expression,  through  the  affectations  which  crowned  the 
"herse"  of  Astrophel  and  Philisides.  He  was  persuaded 
that  Sidney's  death  had  been  a  grave  blow  to  literature 
and   learning.      The  Ruins  of  Time,  and   still   more   the 


106  SPENSER.  [chap. 

Tears  of  the  Muses,  are  full  of  lamentations  over  return- 
ing barbarism  and  ignorance,  and  the  slight  account  made 
by  those  in  power  of  the  gifts  and  the  arts  of  the  writer, 
the  poet,  and  the  dramatist.  Under  what  Avas  popularly 
thought  the  crabbed  and  parsimonious  administration  of 
Burghley,  and  with  the  churlishness  of  the  Puritans,  whom 
he  was  supposed  to  foster,  it  seemed  as  if  the  poetry  of 
the  time  was  passing  away  in  chill  discouragement.  The 
effect  is  described  in  lines  which,  as  we  now  naturally  sup- 
pose, and  Dryden  also  thought,  can  refer  to  no  one  but 
Shakespcrc.  But  it  seems  doubtful  whether  all  this  could 
have  been  said  of  Shakespere  in  1590.  It  seems  more 
likely  that  this  also  is  an  extravagant  compliment  to  Philip 
Sidney,  and  his  masking  performances.  He  was  lament- 
ed elsewhere  under  the  poetical  name  of  Willi/.  If  it 
refers  to  him,  it  was  probably  written  before  his  death, 
though  not  published  till  after  it;  for  the  lines  imply,  not 
that  he  is  literally  dead,  but  that  he  is  in  retirement.  The 
expression  that  he  is  "  dead  of  late,"  is  explained  in  four 
lines  below,  as  "  choosing  to  sit  in  idle  cell,"  and  is  one  of 
Spenser's  common  figures  for  inactivity  or  sorrow.1 

The  verses  are  the  lamentations  of  the  Muse  of  Comedy. 

"  Thalia. 

"  Where  be  the  sweete  delights  of  learning's  treasure 
That  wont  with  Comick  sock  to  beautefie 
The  painted  Theaters,  and  fill  with  pleasure 
The  listuers  eyes  and  eares  with  nielodie ; 
In  which  I  late  was  wont  to  raine  as  Queene, 
And  inaske  in  mirth  with  Graces  well  beseene? 

"  0 !  all  is  gone ;  and  all  that  goodly  glee, 
Which  wont  to  be  the  glorie  of  gay  wits, 


1  v.  Colin  Clout,  1.  81.     Astrophel,\.\1&. 


it.]  THE  FAERIE  QUEENE— THE  FIRST  PART.  107 

Is  layed  abed,  and  no  where  now  to  see ; 
And  in  her  rooaie  unseemly  Sorrow  sits, 
With  hollow  browes  and  greisly  countenaunce, 
Marring  my  joyous  gentle  dalliaunce. 

"And  him  beside  sits  ugly  Barbarisme, 
And  brutish  Ignorance,  ycrept  of  late 
Out  of  dredd  darknes  of  the  deepe  Abysme, 
Where  being  bredd,  he  light  and  heaven  does  hate  : 
They  in  the  mindes  of  men  now  tyrannize, 
And  the  faire  Scene  with  ruJcnes  foule  disguize. 

"  All  places  they  with  follie  have  possest, 
And  with  vaine  toyes  the  vulgare  entertaine; 
But  me  have  banished,  with  all  the  rest 
That  whilome  wont  to  wait  upon  my  traine, 
Fine  Counterfesaunce,  and  unhurtfull  Sport, 
Delight,  and  Laughter,  deckt  in  seemly  sort. 

"All  these,  and  all  that  els  the  Comick  Stage 
With  seasoned  wit  and  goodly  pleasance  graced, 
By  which  mans  life  in  his  likest  image 
Was  limned  forth,  are  wholly  now  defaced ; 
And  those  swecte  wits,  which  wont  the  like  to  frame, 
Are  now  despizd,  and  made  a  laughing  game. 

And  he,  the  man  whom  Nature  selfe  had  made 
To  mock  her  selfe,  and  truth  to  imitate, 
With  kindly  counter  under  Mimiek  shade, 
Our  pleasant  Willy,  ah  !  is  dead  of  late; 
With  whom  all  joy  and  jolly  merriment 
Is  also  dreaded,  and  in  dolour  drent. 


"  But  that  same  gentle  Spirit,  from  whose  pen 
Large  streames  of  honnie  and  sweete  Nectar  flowe, 
Scorning  the  boldnes  of  such  base-borne  men, 
Which  dare  their  follies  forth  so  rashlie  throwe, 
Doth  rather  choose  to  sit  in  idle  Cell, 
Than  so  himselfe  to  mockerie  to  sell." 


108  SPENSER.  [chap. 

But  the  most  remarkable  of  these  pieces  is  a  satirical 
fable,  Mother  HubbercVs  Tale  of  the  Ape  and  Fox,  which 
may  take  rank  with  the  satirical  writings  of  Chaucer  and 
Diyden  for  keenness  of  touch,  for  breadth  of  treatment, 
for  swing  and  fiery  scorn,  and  sustained  strength  of  sar- 
casm. By  his  visit  to  the  Court,  Spenser  had  increased 
his  knowledge  of  the  realities  of  life.  That  brilliant  Court, 
with  a  goddess  at  its  head,  and  full  of  charming  swains 
and  divine  nymphs,  had  also  another  side.  It  was  still  his 
poetical  heaven.  But  with  that  odd  insensibility  to  anom- 
aly and  glaring  contrasts,  •which  is  seen  in  his  time,  and 
perhaps  exists  at  all  times,  he  passed  from  the  celebration 
of  the  dazzling  glories  of  Cynthia's  Court  into  a  fierce 
vein  of  invective  against  its  treacheries,  its  vain  shows,  its 
unceasing  and  mean  intrigues,  its  savage  jealousies,  its  fa- 
tal rivalries,  the  scramble  there  for  preferment  in  Church 
and  State.  When  it  is  considered  what  great  persons 
might  easily  and  naturally  have  been  identified  at  the  time 
with  the  Ape  and  the  Fox,  the  confederate  impostors, 
charlatans,  and  bullying  swindlers,  who  had  stolen  the  lion's 
skin,  and  by  it  mounted  to  the  high  places  of  the  State,  it 
seems  to  be  a  proof  of  the  indifference  of  the  Court  to  the 
power  of  mere  literature,  that  it  should  have  been  safe  to 
write  and  publish  so  freely  and  so  cleverly.  Dull  Cath- 
olic lampoons  and  Puritan  scurrilities  did  not  pass  thus 
unnoticed.  They  were  viewed  as  dangerous  to  the  State, 
and  dealt  with  accordingly.  The  fable  contains  what  we 
can  scarcely  doubt  to  be  some  of  that  wisdom  which  Spen- 
ser learnt  by  his  experience  of  the  Court. 

"  So  pitif ull  a  thing  is  Sutcrs  state ! 
Most  miserable  man,  whom  wicked  fate 
Hath  brought  to  Court,  to  sue  for  had-ywist, 
That  few  have  found,  and  manic  one  hath  mist ! 


ir.]  THE  FAERIE  QC'EEXE— THE  FIRST  PART.  100 

Full  little  knowest  thou,  that  hast  not  tride, 
What  hell  it  is  in  suing  long  to  bide : 
To  loose  good  dayes,  that  might  be  better  spent ; 
To  wast  long  nights  in  pensive  discontent ; 
To  speed  to  day,  to  be  put  back  to-niorrow  ; 
To  feed  on  hope,  to  pine  with  feare  and  sorrow ; 
To  have  thy  Princes  grace,  yet  want  her  Peeres ; 
To  have  thy  asking,  yet  waite  manie  yeeres  ; 
To  fret  thy  soule  with  crosses  and  with  cares  ; 
To  eate  thy  heart  through  comfortlesse  dispaires ; 
To-fawhe,  to  crowche,  to  waite,  to  ride,  to  ronne, 
To  spend,  to  give,  to  want,  to  be  undonnc. 
Unhappie  wight,  borne  to  disastrous  end, 
That  doth  his  life  in  so  long  tendance  spend ! 

"  Who  ever  leaves  sweete  home,  where  meane  estate 
In  safe  assurance,  without  strife  or  hate, 
Findes  all  things  needfull  for  contentment  meeke, 
And  will  to  Court  for  shadowes  vaine  to  sceke, 
Or  hope  to  gaine,  himselfe  will  a  daw  trie : 
That  curse  God  send  unto  mine  enemie !" 

Spenser  probably  did  not  mean  bis  cbaracters  to  fit  too 
closely  to  living  persons.  Tbat  might  have  been  danger- 
ous. But  it  is  difficult  to  believe  tbat  be  bad  not  distinct- 
ly in  bis  eye  a  very  great  personage,  the  greatest  in  Eng- 
land next  to  the  Queen,  in  the  following  picture  of  the 
doino-s  of  the  Fox  installed  at  Court. 

"  Bat  the  false  Foxe  most  kindly  plaid  his  part ; 
For  whatsoever  mother-wit  or  arte 
Could  worke,  he  put  in  proofe :  no  practise  slie, 
No  counterpoint  of  cunning  policie, 
No  reach,  no  breach,  that  might  him  profit  bring, 
But  he  the  same  did  to  his  purpose  wring. 
Nought  suffered  he  the  Ape  to  give  or  graunt, 

But  through  his  hand  must  passe  the  Fiaunt. 

****** 

He  chaffred  Chayres  in  which  Churchmen  were  set, 
And  breach  of  lawes  to  privie  ferme  did  let : 


110  SPENSER.  [chap. 

No  statute  so  established  might  bee, 

Nor  ordinaunce  so  needfull,  but  that  bee 

Would  violate,  though  not  with  violence, 

Yet  under  colour  of  the  confidence 

The  which  the  Ape  repos'd  in  him  alone, 

And  reckned  him  the  kingdomes  corner-stone. 

And  ever,  when  he  ought  would  bring  to  pas, 

His  long  experience  the  platforme  was  : 

And,  when  he  ought  not  pleasing  would  put  by 

The  cloke  was  care  of  thrift,  and  husbandry, 

For  to  encrease  the  common  treasures  store  ; 

But  his  owne  treasure  he  encreased  more, 

And  lifted  up  his  loftie  towres  thereby, 

That  they  began  to  threat  the  neighbour  sky ; 

The  whiles  the  Princes  pallaces  fell  fast 

To  ruine  (for  what  thing  can  ever  last  ?) 

And  whilest  the  other  Peeres,  for  povertie, 

Were  forst  their  auncient  houses  to  let  lie, 

And  their  olde  Castles  to  the  ground  to  fall, 

Which  their  forefathers,  famous  over-all, 

Had  founded  for  the  Kingdome's  ornament, 

And  for  their  memories  long  moniment . 

But  he  no  count  made  of  Nobilitie, 

Nor  the  wilde  beasts  whom  armes  did  glorifie, 

The  Realmes  chiefe  strength  and  girlond  of  the  crowne. 

All  these  through  fained  crimes  he  thrust  adowne, 

Or  made  them  dwell  in  darknes  of  disgrace ; 

For  none,  but  whom  he  list,  might  come  in  place. 

"  Of  men  of  armes  he  had  but  small  regard, 
But  kept  them  lowe,  and  streigned  verie  hard. 
For  men  of  learning  little  he  esteemed  ; 
His  wisdome  he  above  their  learning  deemed. 
As  for  the  rascall  Commons,  least  he  cared, 
For  not  so  common  was  his  bountie  shared. 
Let  God,  (said  he)  if  please,  care  for  the  manic, 
I  for  my  selfe  must  care  before  els  anie. 
So  did  he  good  to  none,  to  manie  ill, 
So  did  he  all  the  kingdome  rob  and  pill ; 


iv.]  THE  FAERIE  QUEENE— THE  FIRST  PART.  Ill 

Yet  none  durst  speake,  ne  none  durst  of  him  plaine, 
So  great  he  was  in  grace,  and  rich  through  gaine. 
Ne  would  he  anie  let  to  have  accesse 
Unto  the  Prince,  but  by  his  owne  addresse, 
For  all  that  els  did  come  were  sure  to  faile." 

Even  at  Court,  however,  the  poet  finds  a  contrast  to  all 
this:  he  had  known  Philip  Sidney,  and  Ralegh  was  his 
friend. 

"  Yet  the  brave  Courtier,  in  whose  beauteous  thought 
Regard  of  honour  harbours  more  than  ought, 
Doth  loath  such  base  condition,  to  backbite 
Anies  good  name  for  envie  or  despite : 
He  stands  on  tearmes  of  honourable  minde, 
Nc  will  be  carried  with  the  common  winde 
Of  Courts  inconstant  mutabilitie, 
Ne  after  everie  tattling  fable  flie ; 
But  heares  and  sees  the  follies  of  the  rest, 
And  thereof  gathers  for  himselfe  the  best. 
He  will  not  creepe,  nor  crouche  with  fained  face, 
But  walkes  upright  with  comely  stedfast  pace, 
And  unto  all  doth  yeeld  due  courtesie ; 
But  not  with  kissed  hand  belowe  the  knee, 
As  that  same  Apish  crue  is  wont  to  doo : 
For  he  disdaines  himselfe  V  embase  theretoo. 
He  hates  fowle  leasings,  and  vile  flatterie, 
Two  filthie  blots  in  noble  gentrie ; 
And  lothefull  idlenes  he  doth  detest, 
The  canker  worme  of  everie  gentle  brest. 

"  Or  lastly,  when  the  bodie  list  to  pause, 
His  minde  unto  the  Muses  he  withdrawes : 
Sweete  Ladie  Muses,  Ladies  of  delight, 
Delights  of  life,  and  ornaments  of  light ! 
With  whom  he  close  confers  with  wise  discourse, 
Of  Natures  workes,  of  heavens  continuall  course, 
Of  forreine  lands,  of  people  different, 
Of  kingdomes  change,  of  divers  gouvcrnment, 


112  SPENSER.  [chap. 

Of  dreadfull  battailes  of  renowned  Knights ; 
With  which  he  kindleth  his  ambitious  sprights 
To  like  desire  and  praise  of  noble  fame, 
The  onely  upshot  whereto  he  doth  ayme : 
For  all  his  minde  on  honour  fixed  is, 
To  which  he  levels  all  his  purposis, 
And  in  his  Princes  service  spends  his  dayes, 
Not  so  much  for  to  gaine,  or  for  to  raise 
Himselfe  to  high  degree,  as  for  his  grace, 
And  in  his  liking  to  winne  worthie  place, 
Through  due  deserts  and  comely  carriage." 

The  fable  also  throws  light  on  the  way  in  which  Spen- 
ser regarded  the  religious  parties,  whose  strife  was  becom- 
ing loud  and  threatening.  Spenser  is  often  spoken  of  as  a 
Puritan.  He  certainly  had  the  Puritan  hatred  of  Home; 
and  in  the  Church  system  as  it  existed  in  England  he  saw 
many  instances  of  ignorance,  laziness,  and  corruption  ;  and 
he  agreed  with  the  Puritans  in  denouncing  them.  His 
pictures  of  the  "  formal  priest,"  with  his  excuses  for  doing 
nothing,  his  new-fashioned  and  improved  substitutes  for 
the  ornate  and  also  too  lengthy  ancient  service,  and  his 
general  ideas  of  self-complacent  comfort,  has  in  it  an  odd 
mixture  of  Roman  Catholic  irony  with  Puritan  censure. 
Indeed,  though  Spenser  hated  with  an  Englishman's  hatred 
all  that  he  considered  Roman  superstition  and  tyranny,  he 
had  a  sense  of  the  poetical  impressiveness  of  the  old  cere- 
monial, and  the  ideas  which  clung  to  it — its  pomp,  its  beau- 
ty, its  suggestiveness — very  far  removed  from  the  icono- 
clastic temper  of  the  Puritans.  In  his  Vieio  of  the  State 
of  Ireland,  he  notes  as  a  sign  of  its  evil  condition  the  state 
of  the  churches,  "  most  of  them  ruined  and  even  with  the 
ground,"  and  the  rest  "  so  unhandsomely  patched  and 
thatched,  that  men  do  even  shun  the  places,  for  the  un- 
comcliness  thereof."     "The  outward  form  (assure  your- 


iv.]  THE  FAERIE  QUEENE— THE  FIRST  PART.  113 

self),"  he  adds,  "  doth  greatly  draw  the  rude  people  to  the 
reverencing  and  frequenting  thereof,  whatever  some  of  our 
late  too  nice  fools  may  say,  that  there  is  nothing  in  the 
seemly  form  and  comely  order  of  the  church." 

"  'Ah !  but  (said  th'  Ape)  the  charge  is  wondrous  great, 
To  feede  mens  soules,  and  hath  an  heavie  threat.' 
'  To  feed  mens  soules  (quoth  he)  is  not  in  man ; 
For  they  must  feed  themselves,  doo  what  we  can. 
We  are  but  charged  to  lay  the  meate  before : 
Eate  they  that  list,  we  need  to  "doo  no  more. 
But  God  it  is  that  feeds  them  with  his  grace, 
The  bread  of  life  powr'd  downe  from  heavenly  place. 
Therefore  said  he,  that  with  the  budding  rod 
Did  rule  the  Jewes,  All  shalbe  taught  of  God. 
That  same  hath  Jesus  Christ  now  to  him  raught, 
By  whom  the  flock  is  rightly  fed,  and  taught : 
He  is  the  Shepheard,  and  the  Priest  is  hee ; 
We  but  his  shepheard  swaines  ordain'd  to  bee. 
Therefore  herewith  doo  not  your  selfe  dismay ; 
Ne  is  the  paines  so  great,  but  beare  ye  may, 
For  not  so  great,  as  it  was  wont  of  yore, 
It's  now  a  dayes,  ne  halfe  so  streight  and  sore. 
They  whilome  used  duly  everie  day 
Their  service  and  their  holie  things  to  say, 
At  morne  and  even,  besides  their  Anthemes  sweete, 
Their  penie  Masses,  and  their  Complynes  meete, 
Their  Diriges,  their  Trentals,  and  their  shrifts. 
Their  memories,  their  singings,  and  their  gifts. 
Now  all  those  needlesse  works  are  laid  away ; 
Now  once  a  weeke,  upon  the  Sabbath  day, 
It  is  enough  to  doo  our  small  devotion, 
And  then  to  follow  any  merrie  motion. 
Ne  are  we  tyde  to  fast,  but  when  we  list ; 
Ne  to  weare  garments  base  of  wollen  twist, 
But  with  the  finest  silkes  us  to  aray, 
That  before  God  we  may  appeare  more  gay, 

G 


114  SPENSER.  [chap. 

Resembling  Aarons  glorie  in  his  place : 
For  f arre  unfit  it  is,  that  person  bace 
Should  with  vile  cloaths  approach  Gods  majestie, 
Whom  no  uncleannes  may  approachen  nie ; 
Or  that  all  men,  which  anie  master  serve, 
Good  garments  for  their  service  should  deserve ; 
But  he  that  serves  the  Lord  of  hoasts  most  high, 
And  that  in  highest  place,  t'  approach  him  nigh, 
And  all  the  peoples  prayers  to  present 
Before  his  throne,  as  on  ambassage  sent 
Both  too  and  fro,  should  not  deserve  to  weare 
A  garment  better  than  of  wooll  or  heare. 
Beside,  we  may  have  lying  by  our  sides 
Our  lovely  Lasses,  or  bright  shining  Brides : 
We  be  not  tyde  to  wilfull  chastitie, 
But  have  the  Gospell  of  free  libertie." 

But  Lis  weapon  is  double-edged,  and  he  had  not  much 
more  love  for 

"  That  ungracious  crew  which  feigns  demurest  grace." 

The  first  prescription  which  the  Priest  gives  to  the  Fox 
who  desires  to  rise  to  preferment  in  the  Church  is  to  win 
the  favour  of  some  great  Puritan  noble. 

"First,  therefore,  when  ye  have  in  handsome  wise 
Your  selfe  attyred,  as  you  can  devise, 
Then  to  some  Noble-man  your  selfe  applye, 
Or  other  great  one  in  the  worldes  eye, 
That  hath  a  zealous  disposition 
To  God,  and  so  to  his  religion. 
There  must  thou  fashion  eke  a  godly  zeale, 
Such  as  no  carpers  may  contrayre  reveale ; 
For  each  thing  faincd  ought  more  warie  bee. 
There  thou  must  walke  in  sober  gravitee, 
And  sccme  as  Saintlike  as  Sainte  Radcgund : 
Fast  much,  pray  oft,  looke  lowly  on  the  ground. 


iv.]  THE  FAERIE  QUEENE— THE  FIRST  PART.  115 

And  unto  everie  one  doo  curtesie  meeke : 

These  lookes  (nought  saying)  doo  a  benefice  seeke, 

And  be  thou  sure  one  not  to  lack  or  long." 

But  he  is  impartial,  and  points  out  that  there  are  other 
ways  of  rising — by  adopting  the  fashions  of  the  Court, 
"  facing,  and  forging,  and  scoffing,  and  crouching  to  please," 
and  so  to  "  mock  out  a  benefice ;"  or  else,  by  compound- 
ing with  a  patron  to  give  him  half  the  profits,  and  in 
the  case  of  a  bishopric,  to  submit  to  the  alienation  of  its 
manors  to  some  powerful  favourite,  as  the  Bishop  of  Sal- 
isbury had  to  surrender  Sherborn  to  Sir  Walter  Ralegh. 
Spenser,  in  his  dedication  of  Mother  HubbenVs  Tale  to 
one  of  the  daughters  of  Sir  John  Spencer,  Lady  Compton 
and  Monteagle,  speaks  of  it  as  "long  sithence  composed 
in  the  raw  conceit  of  youth."  But,  whatever  this  may 
mean,  and  it  was  his  way  thus  to  deprecate  severe  judg- 
ments, his  allowing  the  publication  of  it  at  this  time,  shows, 
if  the  work  itself  did  not  show  it,  that  he  was  in  very  seri- 
ous earnest  in  his  bitter  sarcasms  on  the  base  and  evil  arts 
which  brought  success  at  the  Court. 

He  stayed  in  England  about  a  year  and  a  half  [1590- 
91],  long  enough,  apparently,  to  make  up  his  mind  that  he 
had  not  much  to  hope  for  from  his  great  friends,  Ralegh 
and  perhaps  Essex,  who  were  busy  on  their  own  schemes. 
Ralegh,  from  whom  Spenser  might  hope  most,  was  just 
beginning  to  plunge  into  that  extraordinary  career,  in  the 
thread  of  which  glory  and  disgrace,  far-sighted  and  prince- 
ly public  spirit  and  insatiate  private  greed,  were  to  be  so 
strangely  intertwined.  In  1592  he  planned  the  great  ad- 
venture which  astonished  London  by  the  fabulous  plunder 
of  the  Spanish  treasure-ships;  in  the  same  year  he  was 
in  the  Tower,  under  the  Queen's  displeasure  for  his  secret 
marriage,  affecting  the  most  ridiculous  despair  at  her  go- 


116  SPENSER.  [chap.  iv. 

ing  away  from  the  neighbourhood,  and  pouring  forth  his 
flatteries  on  this  old  woman  of  sixty  as  if  he  had  no  bride 
of  his  own  to  love : — "  I  that  was  wont  to  behold  her  rid- 
ing like  Alexander,  hunting  like  Diana,  walking  like  Venus ; 
the  gentle  wind  blowing  her  fair  hair  about  her  pure  cheeks 
like  a  nymph ;  sometimes,  sitting  in  the  shade  like  a  god- 
dess ;  sometimes,  singing  like  an  angel ;  sometimes,  play- 
ing like  Orpheus — behold  the  sorrow  of  this  world — once 
amiss,  hath  bereaved  me  of  all."  Then  came  the  explora- 
tion of  Guiana,  the  expedition  to  Cadiz,  the  Island  voyage 
[1595-1597].  Ralegh  had  something  else  to  do  than  to 
think  of  Spenser's  fortunes. 

Spenser  turned  back  once  more  to  Ireland,  to  his  clerk- 
ship of  the  Council  of  Munster,  which  he  soon  resigned ; 
to  be  worried  with  lawsuits  about  "lands  in  Shanbally- 
morc  and  Ballingrath,"  by  his  time-serving  and  oppressive 
Irish  neighbour,  Maurice  Roche,  Lord  Fermoy ;  to  brood 
still  over  his  lost  ideal  and  hero,  Sidney  ;  to  write  the  story 
of  his  visit  in  the  pastoral  supplement  to  the  Shepherd's 
Calendar,  Colin  Clout' 's  come  home  again;  to  pursue  the 
story  of  Gloriana's  knights ;  and  to  find  among  the  Irish 
maidens  another  Elizabeth,  a  wife  instead  of  a  queen, 
whose  wooing  and  winning  were  to  give  new  themes  to 
his  imagination. 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE    FAERIE    QUEENE. 

"  Uncouth  [=unknown],  unkist"  are  the  words  from 
Chaucer,1  with  which  the  friend,  who  introduced  Spenser's 
earliest  poetry  to  the  world,  bespeaks  forbearance,  and 
promises  matter  for  admiration  and  delight  in  the  Shep- 
herd's Calendar.  "  You  have  to  know  my  new  poet,"  he 
says  in  effect :  "  and  when  you  have  learned  his  ways,  you 
will  find  how  much  you  have  to  honour  and  love  him." 
"I  doubt  not,"  he  says,  with  a  boldness  of  prediction, 
manifestly  sincere,  which  is  remarkable  about  an  unknown 
man,  "  that  so  soon  as  his  name  shall  come  into  the  knowl- 
edge of  men,  and  his  worthiness  be  sounded  in  the  trump 
of  fame,  but  that  he  shall  be  not  only  kissed,  but  also 
beloved  of  all,  embraced  of  the  most,  and  wondered  at  of 
the  best."  Never  was  prophecy  more  rapidly  and  more 
signally  verified,  probably  beyond  the  prophet's  largest 
expectation.  But  he  goes  on  to  explain  and  indeed  apol- 
ogize for  certain  features  of  the  new  poet's  work,  which 
even  to  readers  of  that  day  might  seem  open  to  exception. 
And  to  readers  of  to-day,  the  phrase,  uncouth,  unkist,  cer- 
tainly expresses  what  many  have  to  confess,  if  they  are 
honest,  as  to  their  first  acquaintance  with  the  Faerie 
Queene.     Its  place  in  literature  is  established  beyond  con- 

1  "  Unknow,  unkyst ;  and  lost,  that  is  unsoght." 

Troylus  and  Cryseidc,  lib.  i. 


118  SPENSER.  [chap. 

troversy.  Yet  its  first  and  unfamiliar  aspect  inspires  re- 
spect, perhaps  interest,  rather  than  attracts  and  satisfies. 
It  is  not  the  remoteness  of  the  subject  alone,  nor  the  dis- 
tance of  three  centuries  which  raises  a  bar  between  it  and 
those  to  whom  it  is  new.  Shakespere  becomes  familiar 
to  us  from  the  first  moment.  The  impossible  legends  of 
Arthur  have  been  made  in  the  language  of  to-day  once 
more  to  touch  our  sympathies,  and  have  lent  themselves 
to  express  our  thoughts.  But  at  first  acquaintance  the 
Faerie  Queene  to  many  of  us  has  been  disappointing.  It 
has  seemed  not  only  antique,  but  artificial.  It  has  seem- 
ed fantastic.  It  has  seemed,  we  cannot  help  avowing, 
tiresome.  It  is  not  till  the  early  appearances  have  worn 
off,  and  we  have  learned  to  make  many  allowances  and 
to  surrender  ourselves  to  the  feelings  and  the  standards 
by  which  it  claims  to  affect  and  govern  us,  that  we  really 
find  under  what  noble  guidance  we  are  proceeding,  and 
what  subtle  and  varied  spells  are  ever  round  us.  j 

1.  The  Faerie  Queene  is  the  work  of  an  unformed  lit- 
erature, the  product  of  an  unperfected  art.  English  poe- 
try, English  language,  in  Spenser's,  nay  in  Shakespere's 
day,  had  much  to  learn,  much  to  unlearn.  They  never, 
perhaps,  have  been  stronger  or  richer,  than  in  that  mar- 
vellous burst  of  youth,  with  all  its  freedom  of  invention, 
of  observation,  of  reflection.  But  they  had  not  that  which 
only  the  experience  and  practice  of  eventful  centuries  could 
give  them.  Even  genius  must  wait  for  the  gifts  of  time. 
It  cannot  forerun  the  limitations  of  its  day,  nor  antici- 
pate the  conquests  and  common  possessions  of  the  future. 
Things  are  impossible  to  the  first  great  masters  of  art 
which  are  easy  to  their  second-rate  successors.  The  pos- 
sibility, or  the  necessity  of  breaking  through  some  con- 
vention, of  attempting  some  unattemptcd  effort,  had  not, 


v.]  THE  FAERIE  QUEENE.  119 

among  other  great  enterprises,  occurred  to  them.  They 
were  laying  the  steps  in  a  magnificent  fashion  on  which 
those  after  them  were  to  rise.  But  we  ought  not  to  shut 
our  eyes  to  mistakes  or  faults  to  which  attention  had  not 
yet  heen  awakened,  or  for  avoiding  which  no  reasonable 
means  had  been  found.  To  learn  from  genius,  we  must 
try  to  recognize  both  what  is  still  imperfect  and  what  is 
grandly  and  unwontedly  successful.  There  is  no  great 
work  of  art,  not  excepting  even  the  Iliad  or  the  Parthenon, 
which  is  not  open,  especially  in  point  of  ornament,  to  the 
scoff  of  the  scoffer,  or  to  the  injustice  of  those  who  do  not 
mind  being  unjust.  But  all  art  belongs  to  man  ;  and  man, 
even  when  he  is  greatest,  is  always  limited  and  imperfect. 
/  The  Faerie  Queene,  as  a  whole,  bears  on  its  face  a  great 
fault  of  construction.  It  carries  with  it  no  adequate  ac- 
count of  its  own  story  ;  it  does  not  explain  itself,  or  con- 
tain in  its  own  structure  what  would  enable  a  reader  to 
understand  how  it  arose.  It  has  to  be  accounted  for  by  a 
prose  explanation  and  key  outside  of  itself.  The  poet  in- 
tended to  reserve  the  central  event,  which  was  the  occasion 
of  all  the  adventures  of  the  poem,  till  they  had  all  been  re- 
lated, leaving  them  as  it  were  in  the  air,  till  at  the  end  of 
twelve  long  books  the  reader  should  at  last  be  told  how 
the  whole  thing  had  originated,  and  what  it  was  all  about. 
He  made  the  mistake  of  confounding  the  answer  to  a  rid- 
dle with  the  crisis  which  unties  the  tangle  of  a  plot  and 
satisfies  the  suspended  interest  of  a  tale.  None  of  the 
great  model  poems  before  him,  however  full  of  digression 
and  episode,  had  failed  to  arrange  their  story  with  clear- 
ness. They  needed  no  commentary  outside  themselves  to 
say  why  they  began  as  they  did,  and  out  of  what  antece- 
dents they  arose.  If  they  started  at  once  from  the  middle 
of  things,  they  made  their  story,  as  it  unfolded  itself,  ex- 


120  SPENSER.  [chap. 

plain,  by  more  or  less  skilful  devices,  all  that  needed  to 
be  known  about  tbeir  beginnings.  They  did  not  think  of 
rules  of  art.  They  did  of  themselves  naturally  what  a 
good  story-teller  does,  to  make  himself  intelligible  and  in- 
teresting; and  it  is  not  easy  to  be  interesting,  unless  the 
parts  of  the  story  are  in  their  place. 

The  defect  seems  to  have  come  upon  Spenser  when  it 
was  too  late  to  remedy  it  in  the  construction  of  his  poem  ; 
and  he  adopted  the  somewhat  clumsy  expedient  of  telling 
us  what  the  poem  itself  ought  to  have  told  us  of  its  gen- 
eral story,  in  a  letter  to  Sir  Walter  Ralegh.  Ralegh  him- 
self, indeed,  suggested  the  letter :  apparently  (from  the  date, 
Jan.  23,  1590),  after  the  first  part  had  gone  through  the 
press.  And  without  this  after-thought,  as  the  twelfth  book 
was  never  reached,  we  should  have  been  left  to  gather  the 
outline  and  plan  of  the  story,  from  imperfect  glimpses  and 
allusions,  as  we  have  to  fill  up  from  hints  and  assumptions 
the  gaps  of  an  unskilful  narrator,  who  leaves  out  what  is 
essential  to  the  understanding  of  his  tale. 

Incidentally,  however,  this  letter  is  an  advantage :  for 
we  have  in  it  the  poet's  own  statement  of  his  purpose  in 
writing,  as  well  as  a  necessary  sketch  of  his  story.  His 
allegory,  as  he  had  explained  to  Bryskett  and  his  friends, 
had  a  moral  purpose.  He  meant  to  shadow  forth,  under 
the  figures  of  twelve  knights,  and  in  their  various  exploits, 
the  characteristics  of  "  a  gentleman  or  noble  person," 
"  fashioned  in  virtuous  and  gentle  discipline."  He  took 
his  machinery  from  the  popular  legends  about  King  Ar- 
thur, and  his  heads  of  moral  philosophy  from  the  current 
Aristotelian  catalogue  of  the  Schools. 

"Sir,  knowing  bow  doubtfully  all  Allegories  may  be  construed, 
and  tbis  booke  of  mine,  whicb  I  bave  entituled  the  Faerie  Quecne, 
being  a  continued  Allegory,  or  darke  conceit,  I  baue  thought  good, 


v.]  THE  FAERIE  QUEENE.  121 

as  well  for  avoyding  of  gealous  opinions  and  misconstructions,  as  also 
for  your  better  light  in  reading  thereof  (being  so  by  you  commanded), 
to  discover  unto  you  the  general  intention  and  meaning,  which  in 
the  whole  course  thereof  I  have  fashioned,  without  expressing  of  any 
particular  purposes,  or  by  accidents,  therein  occasioned.  The  gen- 
erall  end  therefore  of  all  the  booke  is  to  fashion  a  gentleman  or  no- 
ble person  in  vertuous  and  gentle  discipline :  Which  for  that  I  con- 
ceived shoulde  be  most  plausible  and  pleasing,  being  coloured  with 
an  historicall  fiction,  the  which  the  most  part  of  men  delight  to  read, 
rather  for  variety  of  matter  then  for  profite  of  the  ensample,  I  chose 
the  historye  of  King  Arthure,  as  most  fitte  for  the  excellency  of  his 
person,  being  made  famous  by  many  mens  former  workes,  and  also 
furthest  from  the  daunger  of  envy,  and  suspition  of  present  time.  In 
which  I  have  followed  all  the  antique  Poets  historicall ;  first  Homere, 
who  in  the  Persons  of  Agamemnon  and  Ulysses  hath  ensampled  a 
good  governour  and  a  vertuous  mau,  the  one  in  his  Ilias,  the  other  in 
his  Odysseis :  then  Virgil,  whose  like  intention  was  to  doe  in  the  per- 
son of  Aeneas :  after  him  Ariosto  comprised  them  both  in  his  Orlan- 
do :  and  lately  Tasso  dissevered  them  againe,  and  formed  both  parts 
in  two  persons,  namely  that  part  which  they  in  Philosophy  call  Eth- 
ice,  or  vertues  of  a  private  man,  coloured  in  his  Rinaldo ;  the  other 
named  Politice  in  his  Godfredo.  By  ensample  of  which  excellente 
Poets,  I  labour  to  pourtraict  in  Arthure,  before  he  was  king,  the  im- 
age of  a  brave  knight,  perfected  in  the  twelve  private  morall  vertues, 
as  Aristotle  hath  devised ;  the  which  is  the  purpose  of  these  first 
twelve  bookes :  which  if  I  finde  to  be  well  accepted,  I  may  be  per- 
haps encoraged  to  frame  the  other  part  of  polliticke  vertues  in  his 
person,  after  that  hee  came  to  be  king." 

Then,  after  explaining  that  he  meant  the  Faerie  Qaeene 
"for  glory  in  general  intention,  but  in  particular"  for 
Elizabeth,  and  his  Faerie  Land  for  her  kingdom,  he  pro- 
ceeds to  explain,  what  the  first  three  books  hardly  explain, 
-what  the  Faerie  Queene  had  to  do  with  the  structure  of 
the  poem. 

"  But,  because  the  beginning  of  the  whole  worke  seemeth  abrupte, 
and  as  depending  upon  other  antecedents,  it  needs  that  ye  know  the 
occasion  of  these  three  knights  seuerall  adventures.     For  the  Meth- 

G* 


122 


SPENSER.  [chap. 


ode  of  a  Poet  historical  is  not  such,  as  of  an  Historiographer.  For 
an  Historiographer  discourseth  of  affayres  orderly  as  they  were 
donne,  accounting  as  well  the  times  as  the  actions ;  but  a  Poet 
thrusteth  into  the  middcst,  even  where  it  most  concerneth  him,  and  '•- 
there  recoursing  to  the  thinges  forepaste,  and  divining  of  thinges  to 
come,  maketh  a  pleasing  Analysis  of  all. 

"  The  beginning  therefore  of  my  history,  if  it  were  to  be  told  by 
an  Historiographer  should  be  the  twelfth  booke,  which  is  the  last ; 
where  I  devise  that  the  Faerie  Queene  kept  her  Annuall  feaste  xii. 
dayes;  nppon  which  xii.  severall  dayes,  the  occasions  of  the  xii. 
severall  adventures  hapned,  which,  being  undertaken  by  xii.  severall 
knights,  are  in  these  xii.  books  severally  handled  and  discoursed. 
The  first  was  this.  In  the  beginning  of  the  feast,  there  presented 
him  selfe  a  tall  clownishe  younge  man,  who  falling  before  the  Queene 
of  Faries  desired  a  boone  (as  the  manner  then  was)  which  during 
that  feast  she  might  not  refuse ;  which  was  that  hee  might  have  the 
atchievement  of  any  adventure,  which  during  that  feaste  should  hap- 
pen :  that  being  graunted,  he  rested  him  on  the  floore,  unfitte  through 
his  rusticity  for  a  better  place.  Soone  after  entred  a  faire  Ladye  in 
mourning  weedes,  riding  on  a  white  Asse,  with  a  dwarfe  behinde  her 
leading  a  warlike  steed,  that  bore  the  Armes  of  a  knight,  and  his 
speare  in  the  dwarfes  hand.  Shee,  falling  before  the  Queene  of 
Faeries,  complayned  that  her  father  and  mother,  an  ancient  King  and 
Queene,  had  beeue  by  an  huge  dragon  many  years  shut  up  in  a  brasen 
Castle,  who  thence  suff red  them  not  to  yssew ;  and  therefore  besought 
the  Faerie  Queene  to  assygne  her  some  one  of  her  knights  to  take  on 
him  that  exployt.  Presently  that  clownish  person,  upstarting,  desired 
that  adventure :  whereat  the  Queene  much  wondering,  and  the  Lady 
much  gainesaying,  yet  he  earnestly  importuned  his  desire.  In  the 
end  the  Lady  told  him,  that  unlesse  that  armour  which  she  brought 
would  serve  him  (that  is,  the  armour  of  a  Christian  man  specified  by 
Saint  Paul,vi.  Ephes.)  that  he  could  not  succeed  in  that  enterprise; 
which  being  forthwith  put  upon  him,  with  dewe  furnitures  thereunto, 
he  seemed  the  goodliest  man  in  al  that  company,  and  was  well  liked 
of  the  Lady.  And  cf  tesoones  taking  on  him  knighthood,  and  mount- 
ing on  that  straunge  courser,  he  went  forth  with  her  on  that  advent- 
ure :  where  beginneth  the  first  booke,  viz. 

"  A  gentle  knight  was  pricking  on  the  plaync,  &c." 


v.]  THE  FAERIE  QUEEXE.  123 

That  it  was  not  without  reason  that  this  explanatory  key 
was  prefixed  to  the  work,  and  that  either  Spenser  or  Ra- 
legh felt  it  to  be  almost  indispensable,  appears  from  the 
concluding  paragraph. 

"  Thus  much,  Sir,  I  have  briefly  overronne  to  direct  your  under- 
standing to  the  wel-head  of  the  History ;  that  from  thence  gathering 
the  whole  intention  of  the  conceit,  ye  may  as  in  a  handfull  gripe  al 
the  discourse,  which  otherwise  may  happily  seeme  tedious  and  con- 
fused." 

According  to  the  plan  thus  sketched  out,  we  have  but  a 
fragment  of  the  work.  It  was  published  in  two  parcels, 
each  of  three  books,  in  1590  and  1596  ;  and  after  his  death 
two  cantos,  with  two  stray  stanzas,  of  a  seventh  book  were 
found  and  printed.  Each  perfect  book  consists  of  twelve 
cantos  of  from  thirty-five  to  sixty  of  his  nine-line  stanzas. 
The  books  published  in  1590  contain,  as  he  states  in  his 
prefatory  letter,  the  legends  of  Holiness,  of  Temperance, 
and  of  Chastity.  Those  published  in  1596  contain  the 
legends  of  Friendship,  of  Justice,  and  of  Courtesy.  The 
posthumous  cantos  are  entitled,  Of  Mutability,  and  are 
said  to  be  apparently  parcel  of  a  legend  of  Constancy. 
The  poem  which  was  to  treat  of  the  "  politic  "  virtues  was 
never  approached.  Thus  we  have  but  a  fourth  part  of  the 
whole  of  the  projected  work.  It  is  very  doubtful  whether 
the  remaining  six  books  were  completed.  But  it  is  prob- 
able that  a  portion  of  them  was  written,  which,  except  the 
cantos  On  Mutability,  has  perished.  And  the  intended  ti- 
tles or  legends  of  the  later  books  have  not  been  preserved. 
(  Thus  the  poem  was  to  be  an  allegorical  story ;  a  story 
branching  out  into  twelve  separate  stories,  which  them- 
selves would  branch  out  again  and  involve  endless  other 
stories.     It  is  a  complex  scheme  to  keep  well  in  hand,  and 


124  SPENSER.  [chap. 

Spenser's  art  in  doing  so  has  been  praised  by  some  of  bis 
critics.  But  the  art,  if  there  is  any,  is  so  subtle  that  it 
fails  to  save  the  reader  from  perplexity.  The  truth  is  that 
the  power  of  ordering  and  connecting  a  long  and  compli- 
cated plan  was  not  one  of  Spenser's  gifts.  In  the  first  two 
books,  the  allegorical  story  proceeds  from  point  to  point 
with  fair  coherence  and  consecutiveness.  After  them  the 
attempt  to  hold  the  scheme  together,  except  in  the  loosest 
.  and  most  general  way,  is  given  up  as  too  troublesome  or 
too  confined.  The  poet  prefixes,  indeed,  the  name  of  a 
particular  virtue  to  each  book,  but,  with  slender  reference 
to  it,  he  surrenders  himself  freely  to  his  abundant  flow  of 
ideas,  and  to  whatever  fancy  or  invention  tempts  him,  and 
ranges  unrestrained  over  the  whole  field  of  knowledge  and 
imagination.  In  the  first  two  books,  the  allegory  is  transvL 
parent,  and  the  story  connected.  The  allegory  is  of  the 
nature  of  the  Pilgrim's  Progress.  It  starts  from  the  be- 
lief that  religion,  purified  from  falsehood,  superstition,  and 
sin,  is  the  foundation  of  all  nobleness  in  man  ;  and  it  por- 
trays, under  images  and  with  names,  for  the  most  part 
easily  understood,  and  easily  applied  to  real  counterparts, 
the  struggle  which  every  one  at  that  time  supposed  to  be 
o-oino-  on,  between  absolute  truth  and  righteousness  on 
one  side,  and  fatal  error  and  bottomless  wickedness  on  the 
other.  Una,  the  Truth,  the  one  and  only  Bride  of  man's 
spirit,  marked  out  by  the  tokens  of  humility  and  inno- 
cence, and  by  her  power  over  wild  and  untamed  natures 
— the  single  Truth,  in  contrast  to  the  counterfeit  Duessa, 
false  religion,  and  its  actual  embodiment  in  the  false  rival 
Queen  of  Scots — Truth,  the  object  of  passionate  homage, 
real  with  many,  professed  with  all,  which  after  the  impost- 
ures and  scandals  of  the  preceding  age,  had  now  become 
characteristic  of  that  of  Elizabeth— Truth,  its  claims,  its 


v.]  THE  FAERIE  QUEENE.  125 

dangers,  and  its  champions,  are  the  subject  of  the  first 
book :  and  it  is  represented  as  leading  the  manhood  of 
England,  in  spite  not  only  of  terrible  conflict,  but  of  de- 
feat and  falls,  through  the  discipline  of  repentance,  to  holi- 
ness and  the  blessedness  which  comes  with  it.  The  Red 
Cross  Knight,  St.  George  of  England,  whose  name  Geor- 
gos,  the  Ploughman,  is  dwjjlt  upon,  apparently  to  suggest 
that  from  the  commonalty ,Mie  "  tall  clownish  young  men," 
were  raised  up  the  great  champions  of  the  Truth — though 
sorely  troubled  by  the  wiles  of  Duessa,  by  the  craft  of  the 
arch-sorcerer,  by  the  force  and  pride  of  the  great  powers 
of  the  Apocalyptic  Beast  and  Dragon,  finally  overcomes 
them,  and  wins  the  deliverance  of  Una  and  her  love. 

The  second  book,  Of  Temperance,  pursues  the  subject, 
and  represents  the  internal  conquests  cf  self-mastery,  the 
conquests  of  a  man  over  his  passions,  his  violence,  his  cov- 
ctousness,  his  ambition,  his  despair,  his  sensuality.  Sir 
Guyon,  after  conquering  many  foes  of  goodness,  is  the  de- 
stroyer of  the  most  perilous  of  them  all,  Acrasia,  licentious- 
ness, and  her  ensnaring  Bower  of  Bliss.  But  after  this, 
the  thread  at  once  of  story  and  allegory,  slender  hence- 
forth at  the  best,  is  neglected  and  often  entirely  lost.  The 
third  book,  the  Legend  of  Chastity,  is  a  repetition  of  the 
ideas  of  the  latter  part  of  the  second,  with  a  heroine,  Brit- 
omart,  in  place  of  the  Knight  of  the  previous  book,  Sir 
Guyon,  and  with  a  special  glorification  of  the  high-flown 
and  romantic  sentiments  about  purity,  which  were  the  po- 
etic creed  of  the  courtiers  of  Elizabeth,  in  flagrant  and 
sometimes  in  fragic  contrast  to  their  practical  conduct  of 
life.  The  loose  and  ill-compacted  nature  of  the  plan  be- 
comes still  more  evident  in  the  second  instalment  of  the 
work.  Even  the  special  note  of  each  particular  virtue  be- 
comes more  faint  and  indistinct.     The  one  law  to  which 


126  SPENSER.  [chap. 

the  poet  feels  bound  is  to  have  twelve  cantos  in  each 
book;  and  to  do  this  he  is  sometimes  driven  to  what  in 
later  times  has  been  called  padding.  One  of  the  cantos 
of  the  third  book  is  a  genealogy  of  British  kings  from 
Geoffrey  of  Monmouth ;  one  of  the  cantos  of  the  Legend 
of  Friendship  is  made  up  of  an  episode  describing  the 
marriage  of  the  Thames  and  the  Medway,  with  an  elab- 
orate catalogue  of  the  English  and  Irish  rivers,  and  the 
names  of  the  sea-nymphs.  In  truth,  he  had  exhausted  his 
proper  allegory,  or  he  got  tired  of  it.  His  poem  became 
an  elastic  framework,  into  which  he  could  fit  whatever  in- 
terested him  and  tempted  him  to  composition.  The  grav- 
ity of  the  first  books  disappears.  lie  passes  into  satire  and 
caricature.  We  meet  with  Braggadochio  and  Trompart, 
with  the  discomfiture  of  Malecasta,  with  the  conjugal  trou- 
bles of  Malbecco  and  Ilelenore,  with  the  imitation  from 
Ariosto  of  the  Squire  of  Dames.  He  puts  into  verse  a 
poetical  physiology  of  the  human  body ;  he  translates  Lu- 
cretius, and  speculates  on  the  origin  of  human  souls ;  ho 
speculates,  too,  on  social  justice,  and  composes  an  argu- 
mentative refutation  of  the  Anabaptist  theories  of  right 
and  equality  among  men.  As  the  poem  proceeds,  he 
seems  to  feel  himself  more  free  to  introduce  what  he 
pleases.  Allusions  to  real  men  and  events  are  sometimes 
clear,  at  other  times  evident,  though  they  have  now  ceased 
to  be  intelligible  to  us.  His  disgust  and  resentment  breaks 
out  at  the  ways  of  the  Court  in  sarcastic  moralizing,  or  in 
pictures  of  dark  and  repulsive  imagery.  The  characters 
and  pictures  of  his  friends  furnish  material  for  his  poem ; 
he  does  not  mind  touching  on  the  misadventures  of  Ra- 
legh, and  even  of  Lord  Grey,  with  sly  humour  or  a  word 
of  candid  advice.  He  becomes  bolder  in  the  distinct  in- 
troduction of  contemporary  history.     The  defeat  of  Dues- 


v.]  THE  FAERIE  QUEENE.  127 

sa  was  only  figuratively  shown  in  the  first  portion ;  in  the 
second  the  subject  is  resumed.  As  Elizabeth  is  the  "  one 
form  of  many  names,"  Gloriana,  Belphoebe,  Britomart, 
Mercilla,  so,  "  under  feigned  colours  shading  a  true  case," 
he  deals  with  her  rival.  Mary  seems  at  one  time  the  false 
Florimel,  the  creature  of  enchantment,  stirring  up  strife, 
and  fought  for  by  the  foolish  knights  whom  she  deceives, 
Blandamour  and  Paridell,  the  counterparts  of  Norfolk  and 
the  intriguers  of  1571.  At  another,  she  is  the  fierce  Ama- 
zonian queen,  Radegund,  by  whom,  for  a  moment,  even 
Arthegal  is  brought  into  disgraceful  thraldom,  till  Brit- 
omart, whom  he  has  once  fought  against,  delivers  him. 
And,  finally,  the  fate  of  the  typical  Duessa  is  that  of 
the  real  Mary  Queen  of  Scots  described  in  great  detail — 
a  liberty  in  dealing  with  great  affairs  of  State  for  which 
James  of  Scotland  actually  desired  that  he  should  be 
tried  and  punished.1  So  Philip  II.  is  at  one  time  the 
Soldan,  at  another  the  Spanish  monster  Geryoneo,  at  an- 
other the  fosterer  of  Catholic  intrigues  in  France  and  Ire- 
land, Grantorto.  But  real  names  are  also  introduced  with 
scarcely  any  disguise:  Guizor,  and  Burbon,  the  Knight 
who  throws  away  his  shield,  Henry  IV.,  and  his  Lady 
Flourdelis,  the  Lady  Beige,  and  her  seventeen  sons :  the 
Lady  Irena,  whom  Arthegal  delivers.  The  overthrow  of 
the  Armada,  the  English  war  in  the  Low  Countries,  the 
apostasy  of  Henry  IV.,  the  deliverance  of  Ireland  from  the 
"great  wrong"  of  Desmond's  rebellion,  the  giant  Grantor- 
to, form,  under  more  or  less  transparent  allegory,  great  part 
of  the  Legend  of  Justice.  Nay,  Spenser's  long -fostered 
revenge  on  the  lady  who  had  once  scorned  him,  the  Ros- 
alind of  the  Shepherd's  Calendar,  the  Mirabella  of  the 
Faerie  Queene,  and  his  own  late  and  happy  marriage  in 
1  Hales'  Life,  Globe  Edition. 


128  SPENSER.  [chap. 

Ireland,  arc  also  brought  in  to  supply  materials  for  the 
Legend  of  Courtesy.  So  multifarious  is  the  poem,  full  of 
all  that  he  thought,  or  observed,  or  felt ;  a  receptacle,  with- 
out much  care  to  avoid  repetition,  or  to  prune,  correct,  and 
condense,  for  all  the  abundance  of  his  ideas,  as  they  welled 
forth  in  his  mind  day  by  day.  It  is  really  a  collection 
of  separate  tales  and  allegories,  as  much  as  the  Arabian 
Nights,  or  as  its  counterpart  and  rival  of  our  own  century, 
the  Idylls  of  the  King.  As  a  whole,  it  is  confusing :  but 
we  need  not  treat  it  as  a  whole.  Its  continued  interest 
soon  breaks  down.  But  it  is  probably  best  that  Spenser 
gave  his  mind  the  vague  freedom  which  suited  it,  and  that 
he  did  not  make  efforts  to  tie  himself  down  to  his  pre-ar- 
ranged but  too  ambitious  plan.  "We  can  hardly  lose  our 
way  in  it,  for  there  is  no  way  to  lose.  It  is  a  wilderness 
in  which  we  are  left  to  wander.  But  there  may  be  inter- 
est and  pleasure  in  a  wilderness,  if  we  are  prepared  for  the 
wandering. 

Still,  the  complexity,  or,  rather,  the  uncared-for  and 
clumsy  arrangement  of  the  poem  is  matter  which  disturbs 
a  reader's  satisfaction,  till  he  gets  accustomed  to  the  poet's 
way,  and  resigns  himself  to  it.  It  is  a  heroic  poem,  in 
which  the  heroine,  who  gives  her  name  to  it,  never  ap- 
pears: a  story,  of  which  the  basis  and  starting-point  is 
whimsically  withheld  for  disclosure  in  the  last  book,  which 
was  never  written.  If  Ariosto's  jumps  and  transitions 
are  more  audacious,  Spenser's  intricacy  is  more  puzzling. 
Adventures  begin  which  have  no  finish.  Actors  in  them 
drop  from  the  clouds,  claim  an  interest,  and  we  ask  in 
vain  what  has  become  of  them.  A  vein  of  what  are  mani- 
festly contemporary  allusions  breaks  across  the  moral  drift 
of  the  allegory,  with  an  apparently  distinct  yet  obscured 
meaning,  and  one  of  which  it  is  the  work  of  dissertations 


v.]  THE  FAERIE  QUEENE.  129 

to  find  the  key.  The  passion  of  the  age  was  for  ingen- 
ious riddling  in  morality  as  in  love.  And  in  Spenser's 
allegories  we  are  not  seldom  at  a  loss  to  make  out  what 
and  how  much  was  really  intended,  amid  a  maze  of  over- 
strained analogies  and  over-subtle  conceits,  and  attempts 
to  hinder  a  too  close  and  dangerous  identification. 

Indeed,  Spenser's  mode  of  allegory,  which  was  histor- 
ical as  well  as  moral,  and  contains  a  good  deal  of  history, 
if  we  knew  it,  often  seems  devised  to  throw  curious  read- 
ers off  the  scent.  It  was  purposely  baffling  and  hazy.  A 
characteristic  trait  was  singled  out.  A  name  was  trans- 
posed in  anagram,  like  Irena,  or  distorted,  as  if  by  imper- 
fect pronunciation,  like  Burbon  and  Arthegal,  or  invented 
to  express  a  quality,  like  Una,  or  Glonana,  or  Corceca,  or 
Fradubio,  or  adopted  with  no  particular  reason  from  the 
Morte  d1  Arthur,  or  any  other  old  literature.  The  per- 
sonage is  introduced  with  some  feature,  or  amid  circum- 
stances which  seem  for  a  moment  to  fix  the  meaning. 
But  when  we  look  to  the  sequence  of  history  being  kept 
up  in  the  sequence  of  the  story,  we  find  ourselves  thrown 
out.  A  character  which  fits  one  person  puts  on  the  marks 
of  another :  a  likeness  which  we  identify  with  one  real 
person  passes  into  the  likeness  of  some  one  else.  The 
real,  in  person,  incident,  institution,  shades  off  in  the 
ideal ;  after  showing  itself  by  plain  tokens,  it  turns  aside 
out  of  its  actual  path  of  fact,  and  ends,  as  the  poet  thinks 
it  ought  to  end,  in  victory  or  defeat,  glory  or  failure. 
Prince  Arthur  passes  from  Leicester  to  Sidney,  and  then 
back  again  to  Leicester.  There  are  double  or  treble  alle- 
gories ;  Elizabeth  is  Gloriana,  Belphoebe,  Britomart,  Mer- 
cilla,  perhaps  Amoret ;  her  rival  is  Duessa,  the  false  Flori- 
mel,  probably  the  fierce  temptress,  the  Amazon  Iiadegund. 
Thus,  what  for  a  moment  was  clear  and  definite,  fades  like 


130  SPENSER.  [chap. 

the  changing  fringe  of  a  dispersing  cloud.  The  character 
which  we  identified  disappears  in  other  scenes  and  ad- 
ventures, where  we  lose  sight  of  all  that  identified  it.  A 
complete  transformation  destroys  the  likeness  which  was 
begun.  There  is  an  intentional  dislocation  of  the  parts  of 
the  story,  when  they  might  make  it  imprudently  close  in 
its  reflection  of  facts  or  resemblance  in  portraiture.  A 
feature  is  shown,  a  manifest  allusion  made,  and  then  the 
poet  starts  off  in  other  directions,  to  confuse  and  perplex 
all  attempts  at  interpretation,  which  might  be  too  particu- 
lar and  too  certain.  This  was,  no  doubt,  merely  accord- 
ing to  the  fashion  of  the  time,  and  the  habits  of  mind  into 
which  the  poet  had  grown.  But  there  were  often  reasons 
for  it,  in  an  age  so  suspicious,  and  so  dangerous  to  those 
who  meddled  with  hi<jh  matters  of  state. 

2.  Another  feature  which  is  on  the  surface  of  the  Faerie 
Queene,  and  which  will  displease  a  reader  who  has  been 
trained  to  value  what  is  natural  and  genuine,  is  its  affec- 
tation of  the  language  and  the  customs  of  life  belonging 
to  an  age  which  is  not  its  own.  It  is,  indeed,  redolent  of 
the  present :  but  it  is  almost  avowedly  an  imitation  of 
what  was  current  in  the  days  of  Cbaucer:  of  what  were 
supposed  to  be  the  words,  and  the  social  ideas  and  condu- 
ctions, of  the  age  of  chivalry.  lie  looked  back  to  the  fash- 
ions and  ideas  of  the  Middle  Ages,  as  Pindar  sought  his 
materials  in  the  legends  and  customs  of  the  Homeric 
times,  and  created  a  revival  of  the  spirit  of  the  age  of  the 
Heroes  in  an  age  of  tyrants  and  incipient  democracies.1 
The  age  of  chivalry,  in  Spenser's  day  far  distant,  had  yet 
left  two  survivals,  one  real,  the  other  formal.  The  real 
survival  was  the  spirit  of  armed  adventure,  which  was 
never  stronger  or  more  stirring  than  in  the  gallants  and 
1  Vid.  Keble,  Prcelcd.  Acad.,  xxiv.  p.  4*79, 480. 


v.]  THE  FAERIE  QUEENE.  131 

discoverers  of  Elizabeth's  reign,  the  captains  of  the  Eng- 
lish companies  in  the  Low  Countries,  the  audacious  sail- 
ors who  explored  unknown  oceans  and  plundered  the 
Spaniards,  the  scholars  and  gentlemen  equally  ready  for 
work  on  sea  and  land,  like  Ralegh  and  Sir  Richard  Gren- 
ville,  of  the  "Revenge."  The  formal  survival  was  the 
fashion  of  keeping  up  the  trappings  of  knightly  times, 
as  we  keep  up  Judges'  wigs,  court  dresses,  and  Lord 
Mayors'  shows.  In  actual  life  it  was  seen  in  pageants 
and  ceremonies,  in  the  yet  lingering  parade  of  jousts  and 
tournaments,  in  the  knightly  accoutrements  still  worn  in 
the  days  of  the  bullet  and  the  cannon-ball.  In  the  appa- 
ratus of  the  poet,  as  all  were  shepherds  when  he  wanted 
to  represent  the  life  of  peace  and  letters,  so  all  were 
knights,  or  the  foes  and  victims  of  knights,  when  his 
theme  was  action  and  enterprise.  It  was  the  custom  that 
the  Muse  masked,  to  use  Spenser's  word,  under  these  dis- 
guises ;  and  this  conventional  masquerade  of  pastoral  po- 
etry or  knight-errantry  was  the  form  under  which  the 
poetical  school  that  preceded  the  dramatists  naturally  ex- 
pressed their  ideas.  It  seems  to  us  odd  that  peaceful 
sheepcots  and  love-sick  swains  should  stand  for  the  world 
of  the  Tudors  and  Guises,  or  that  its  cunning  state-craft 
and  relentless  cruelty  should  be  represented  by  the  gener- 
ous follies  of  an  imaginary  chivalry.  But  it  was  the  fash- 
ion which  Spenser  found,  and  he  accepted  it.  His  genius 
was  not  of  that  sort  which  breaks  out  from  trammels,  but 
of  that  which  makes  the  best  of  what  it  finds.  And  what- 
ever we  may  think  of  the  fashion,  at  least  he  gave  it  new 
interest  and  splendour  by  the  spirit  with  which  he  threw 
himself  into  it. 

The  condition  which  he  took  as  the  groundwork  of  his 
poetical  fabric  suggested  the  character  of  his  language. 


132  SPENSER.  [chap. 

Chaucer  was  then  the  "  God  of  English  poetry ;"  his  was 
the  one  name  which  filled  a  place  apart  in  the  history 
of  English  verse.  Spenser  was  a  student  of  Chaucer,  and 
borrowed  as  he  judged  fit,  not  only  from  his  vocabulary, 
but  from  his  grammatical  precedents  and  analogies,  with 
the  object  of  giving  an  appropriate  colouring  to  what  was 
to  be  raised  as  far  as  possible  above  familiar  life.  Besides 
this,  the  language  was  still  in  such  an  unsettled  state  that, 
from  a  man  with  resources  like  Spenser's,  it  naturally  in- 
vited attempts  to  enrich  and  colour  it,  to  increase  its  flex- 
ibility and  power.  The  liberty  of  reviving  old  forms, 
of  adopting  from  the  language  of  the  street  and  market 
homely  but  expressive  words  or  combinations,  of  follow- 
ing in  the  track  of  convenient  constructions,  of  venturing 
on  new  and  bold  phrases,  was  rightly  greater  in  his  time 
than  at  a  later  stage  of  the  language.  Many  of  his  words, 
either  invented  or  preserved,  are  happy  additions ;  some 
which  have  not  taken  root  in  the  language,  we  may  re- 
gret. But  it  was  a  liberty  which  he  abused.  He  was 
extravagant  and  unrestrained  in  his  experiments  on  lan- 
guage. And  they  were  made  not  merely  to  preserve  or 
to  invent  a  good  expression.  On  his  own  authority  he 
cuts  down,  or  he  alters  a  word,  or  he  adopts  a  mere  cor- 
rupt pronunciation,  to  suit  a  place  in  his  metre,  or  because 
he  wants  a  rime.  Precedents,  as  Mr.  Guest  has  said,  may 
no  doubt  be  found  for  each  one  of  these  sacrifices  to  the 
necessities  of  metre  or  rime,  in  some  one  or  other  living 
dialectic  usage,  or  even  in  printed  books  —  "blend"  for 
"blind,"  " misleehe"  for  "mislike,"  "kest"  for  "cast," 
"  cherry "  for  "  cherish,"  "  vilde "  for  "  vile,"  or  even 
"  loaivcs"  for  "waves,"  because  it  has  to  rime  to  "jaivs." 
But  when  they  are  profusely  used  as  they  are  in  Spen- 
ser, they  argue,  as  critics  of  his  own  age,  such  as  Puttcn- 


v.]  THE  FAERIE  QUEENE.  133 

ham,  remarked,  either  want  of  trouble,  or  want  of  resource. 
In  his  impatience  he  is  reckless  in  making  a  word  which 
he  wants — "fortunize,"  "mercified,"  " unblindfold,"  "re- 
live " — he  is  reckless  in  making  one  word  do  the  duty  of 
another,  interchanging  actives  and  passives,  transferring 
epithets  from  their  proper  subjects.  The  "  humbled 
grass,"  is  the  grass  on  which  a  man  lies  humbled :  the 
"lamentable  eye"  is  the  eye  which  laments.  "  His  treat- 
ment of  words,"  says  Mr.  Craik,  "  on  such  occasions  " — 
occasions  of  difficulty  to  his  verse — "is  like  nothing  that 
ever  was  seen,  unless  it  might  be  Hercules  breaking  the 
back  of  the  Nemean  lion.  He  gives  them  any  sense  and 
any  shape  that  the  case  may  demand.  Sometimes  he 
merely  alters  a  letter  or  two ;  sometimes  he  twists  off  the 
head  or  the  tail  of  the  unfortunate  vocable  altogether. 
But  this  fearless,  lordly,  truly  royal  style  makes  one  only 
feel  the  more  how  easily,  if  he  chose,  he  could  avoid  the 
necessity  of  having  recourse  to  such  outrages." 

His  own  generation  felt  his  license  to  be  extreme.  "  In 
affecting  the  ancients,"  said  Ben  Jonson,  "  he  writ  no  lan- 
guage." Daniel  writes  sarcastically,  soon  after  the  Faerie 
Queene  appeared,  of  those  who 

"  Sing  of  knights  and  Palladines, 
In  aged  accents  and  untimely  words." 

And  to  us,  though  students  of  the  language  must  always 
find  interest  in  the  storehouse  of  ancient  or  invented  lan- 
guage to  be  found  in  Spenser,  this  mixture  of  what  is  ob- 
solete or  capriciously  new  is  a  bar,  and  not  an  unreasona- 
ble one,  to  a  frank  welcome  at  first  acquaintance.  Fuller 
remarks,  with  some  slyness,  that  "  the  many  Chaucerisms 
used  (for  I  will  not  say,  affected)  by  him  are  thought  by 
the  ignorant  to  be  blemishes,  known  by  the  learned  to  be 


134  SPENSER.  [chai*. 

beauties,  in  his  book ;  which  notwithstanding  had  been 
more  saleable,  if  more  conformed  to  our  modern  lan- 
guage." The  grotesque,  though  it  has  its  place  as  one 
of  the  instruments  of  poetical  effect,  is  a  dangerous  ele- 
ment to  handle.  Spenser's  age  was  very  insensible  to  the 
presence  and  the  dangers  of  the  grotesque,  and  he  was  not 
before  his  time  in  feeling  what  Avas  unpleasing  in  incon- 
gruous mixtures.  Strong  in  the  abundant  but  unsifted 
learning  of  his  day,  a  style  of  learning  which  in  his  case 
was  strangely  inaccurate,  he  not  only  mixed  the  past  with 
the  present,  fairyland  with  politics,  mythology  with  the 
most  serious  Christian  ideas,  but  he  often  mixed  together 
the  very  features  which  are  most  discordant,  in  the  col- 
ours, forms,  and  methods  by  which  he  sought  to  produce 
the  effect  of  his  pictures. 

3.  Another  source  of  annoyance  and  disappointment 
is  found  in  the  imperfections  and  inconsistencies  of  the 
poet's  standard  of  what  is  becoming  to  say  and  to  write 
about.  Exaggeration,  diffuseness,  prolixity,  were  the  liter- 
ary diseases  of  the  age  ;  an  ago  of  great  excitement  and 
hope,  which  had  suddenly  discovered  its  wealth  and  its 
powers,  but  not  the  rules  of  true  economy  in  using  them. 
With  the  classics  open  before  it,  and  alive  to  much  of  the 
grandeur  of  their  teaching,  it  was  almost  blind  to  the  spirit 
of  self-restraint,  proportion,  and  simplicity  which  govern- 
ed the  great  models.  It  was  left  to  a  later  age  to  discern 
these  and  appreciate  them.  This  unresisted  proneness  to 
exaggeration  produced  the  extravagance  and  the  horrors  of 
the  Elizabethan  Drama,  full,  as  it  was,  nevertheless,  of  in- 
sight and  originality.  It  only  too  naturally  led  the  ear- 
lier Spenser  astray.  What  Dryden,  in  one  of  his  inter- 
esting critical  prefaces  says  of  himself,  is  true  of  Spenser: 
"Thoughts,  such  as  they  arc,  come  crowding  in  so  fast 


v.]  THE  FAERIE  QUEENE.  135 

npon  ine,  that  my  only  difficulty  is  to  choose  or  to  reject; 
to  run  them  into  verse,  or  to  give  them  the  other  harmony 
of  prose."  There  was  in  Spenser  a  facility  for  turning "\ 
to  account  all  material,  original  or  borrowed,  an  inconti- 
nence of  the  descriptive  faculty,  which  was  ever  ready  to 
exercise  itself  on  any  object,  the  most  unfitting  and  loath- 
some, as  on  the  noblest,  the  purest,  or  the  most  beautiful. 
There  are  pictures  in  him  which  seem  meant  to  turn  our 
stomach.  Worse  than  that,  there  are  pictures  which  for 
a  time  rank  the  poet  of  Holiness  or  Temperance  with  the 
painters  who  used  their  great  art  to  represent  at  once  the 
most  sacred  and  holiest  forms,  and  also  scenes  which  few 
people  now  like  to  look  upon  in  company — scenes  and 
descriptions  which  may,  perhaps  from  the  habits  of  the 
time,  have  been  playfully  and  innocently  produced,  but 
which  it  is  certainly  not  easy  to  dwell  upon  innocently 
now.  And  apart  from  these  serious  faults,  there  is  con-~N 
tinually  haunting  us,  amid  incontestable  richness,  vigour, 
and  beauty,  a  sense  that  the  work  is  overdone.  Spenser 
certainly  did  not  want  for  humour  and  an  eye  for  the-ri- 
diculous.  There  is  no  want  in  him,  either,  of  that  power 
of  epigrammatic  terseness,  which,  in  spite  of  its  diffuse- 
ness,  his  age  valued  and  cultivated.  But  when  he  gets  on 
a  story  or  a  scene,  he  never  knows  where  to  stop.  His 
duels  go  on  stanza  after  stanza  till  there  is  no  sound  part 
left  in  either  champion.  His  palaces,  landscapes,  pageants, 
feasts,  are  taken  to  pieces  in  all  their  parts,  and  all  these 
parts  are  likened  to  some  other  things.  "  His  abundance," 
says  Mr.  Craik,  "  is  often  oppressive  ;  it  is  like  wading 
among  unmown  yrass."  And  he  drowns  us  in  words.  His 
abundant  and  incongruous  adjectives  may  sometimes,  per- 
haps, startle  us  unfairly,  because  their  associations  and  sug- 
gestions have  quite  altered ;  but  very  often  they  are  the 


136  SPENSER.  [chap. 

idle  outpouring  of  an  unrestrained  affluence  of  language. 
Tho  impression  remains  that  he  wants  a  due  perception 
of  the  absurd,  the  unnatural,  the  unnecessary ;  that  he 
does  not  care  if  he  makes  us  smile,  or  does  not  know- 
how  to  help  it,  when  he  tries  to  make  us  admire  or  sym- 
pathize. 

Under  this  head  comes  a  feature  which  the  "  charity  of 
history  "  may  lead  us  to  treat  as  simple  exaggeration,  hut 
which  often  suggests  something  less  pardonable,  in  the 
great  characters,  political  or  literary,  of  Elizabeth's  reign. 
This  was  the  gross,  shameless,  lying  flattery  paid  to  the 
Queen.  There  is  really  nothing  like  it  in  history.  It  is 
unique  as  a  phenomenon  that  proud,  able,  free-spoken 
men,  with  all  their  high  instincts  of  what  was  noble  and 
true,  with  all  their  admiration  of  the  Queen's  high  quali- 
ties, should  have  offered  it,  even  as  an  unmeaning  custom ; 
and  that  a  proud  and  free-spoken  people  should  not,  in  the 
very  genuineness  of  their  pride  in  her  and  their  loyalty, 
have  received  it  with  shouts  of  derision  and  disgust.  The 
flattery  of  Roman  emperors  and  Roman  Popes,  if  as  extrav- 
agant, was  not  so  personal.  Even  Louis  XIV.  was  not  cel- 
ebrated in  his  dreary  old  age  as  a  model  of  ideal  beauty 
and  a  paragon  of  romantic  perfection.  It  was  no  worship 
of  a  secluded  and  distant  object  of  loyalty :  the  men  who 
thus  flattered  knew  perfectly  well,  often  by  painful  expe- 
rience, what  Elizabeth  was :  able,  indeed,  high-spirited,  suc- 
cessful, but  ungrateful  to  her  servants,  capricious,  vain,  ill- 
tempered,  unjust,  and  in  her  old  age  ugly.  And  yet  the 
Gloriana  of  the  Faerie  Qaeene,  the  Empress  of  all  noble- 
ness— Belphoebe,  the  Princess  of  all  sweetness  and  beauty 
— Britomart,  the  armed  votaress  of  all  purity — Mercilla, 
the  lady  of  all  compassion  and  grace — were  but  the  reflec- 
tions of  the  language  in  which  it  was  then  agreed  upon  by 


v.]  THE  FAERIE  QUEENE.  137 

some  of  the  greatest  of  Englishmen  to  speak,  and  to  be 
supposed  to  think,  of  the  Queen. 

II.  But  when  all  these  faults  have  been  admitted,  faults 
of  design  and  faults  of  execution — and  when  it  is  admitted, 
further,  that  there  is  a  general  want  of  reality,  substance, 
distinctness,  and  strength  in  the  personages  of  the  poem 
— that,  compared  with  the  contemporary  drama,  Spenser's 
knights  and  ladies  and  villains  are  thin  and  ghost-like,  and 
that,  as  Daniel  says,  he 

"  Paints  shadows  in  imaginary  lines — " 

it  yet  remains  that  our  greatest  poets  since  his  day  have 
loved  him  and  delighted  in  him.  He  had  Shakespere's  C#-* 
praise.  Cowley  was  made  a  poet  by  reading  him.  Dry- 
den  calls  Milton  "the  poetical  son  of  Spenser:"  "Milton," 
lie  writes,  "  has  acknowledged  to  me  that  Spenser  was  his 
original."  Dryden's  own  homage  to  him  is  frequent  and 
generous.  Pope  found  as  much  pleasure  in  the  Faerie 
Queene  in  his  later  years  as  he  had  found  in  reading  it 
when  he  was  twelve  years  old :  and  what  Milton,  Dry  den, 
and  Pope  admired,  Wordsworth  too  found  full  of  noble- 
ness, purity,  and  sweetness.  What  is  it  that  gives  the 
Faerie  Queene  its  hold  on  those  who  appreciate  the  rich- 
ness and  music  of  English  language,  and  who  in  temper 
and  moral  standard  are  quick  to  respond  to  English  man- 
liness and  tenderness?  The  spell  is  to  be  found  mainly 
in  three  things — (l)  in  the  quaint  stateliness  of  Spenser's 
imaginary  world  and  its  representatives ;  (2)  in  the  beauty 
and  melody  of  his  numbers*  the  abundance  and  grace  of 
his  poetic  ornaments,  in  the  recurring  and  haunting  rhythm 
of  numberless  passages,  in  which  thought  and  imagery  and 
language  and  melody  are  interwoven  in  one  .perfect  and 
satisfying  harmony ;  and  (3)  in  the  intrinsic  nobleness  of 

5 


138  SPENSER.  [chap. 

his  general  aim,  his  conception  of  human  life,  at  once  so 
exacting  and  so  indulgent,  his  high  ethical  principles  and 
ideals,  his  unfeigned  honour  for  all  that  is  pure  and  hrave 
and  unselfish  and  tender,  his  generous  estimate  of  what 
is  due  from  man  to  man  of  service,  affection,  and  fidelity. 
His  fictions  embodied  truths  of  character  which,  with  all 
their  shadowy  incompleteness,  were  too  real  and  too  beau- 
tiful to  lose  their  charm  with  time. 

1.  Spenser  accepted  from  his  age  the  quaint  stateliness 
which  is  characteristic  of  his  poem.  His  poetry  is  not 
simple  and  direct  like  that  of  the  Greeks.  It  has  not  the 
exquisite  finish  and  felicity  of  the  best  of  the  Latins.  It 
has  not  the  massive  grandeur,  the  depth,  the  freedom,  the 
shades  and  subtle  complexities  of  feeling  and  motive, 
Avhich  the  English  dramatists  found  by  going  straight  to 
nature.  It  has  the  stateliness  of  highly  artificial  condi- 
tions of  society,  of  the  Court,  the  pageant,  the  tournament, 
as  opposed  to  the  majesty  of  the  great  events  in  human 
life  and  history,  its  real  vicissitudes,  its  catastrophes,  its 
tragedies,  its  revolutions,  its  sins.  Throughout  the  pro- 
longed crisis  of  Elizabeth's  reign,  her  gay  and  dashing 
courtiers,  and  even  her  serious  masters  of  affairs,  persisted 
in  pretending  to  look  on  the  world  in  which  they  lived  as 
if  through  the  side-scenes  of  a  masque,  and  relieved  against 
the  background  of  a  stage-curtain.  Human  life,  in  those 
days,  counted  for  little  ;  fortune,  honour,  national  existence 
hung  in  the  balance  ;  the  game  was  one  in  which  the  heads 
of  kings  and  queens  and  great  statesmen  were  the  stakes 
— yet  the  players  could  not  get  out  of  their  stiff  and  con- 
strained costume,  out  of  their  artificial  and  fantastic  fig- 
ments of  thought,  out  of  their  conceits  and  affectations  of 
language.  They  carried  it,  with  all  their  sagacity,  with  all 
their  intensity  of  purpose, to  the  council-board  and  the 


v.]  THE  FAERIE  QUEEXE.  139 

judgment-seat.  They  carried  it  to  the  scaffold.  The  con- 
ventional supposition  was  that  at  the  Court,  though  ever}r 
one  lcnew  better,  all  was  perpetual  sunshine,  perpetual  hol- 
iday, perpetual  triumph,  perpetual  love-making.  It  was 
the  happy  reign  of  the  good  and  wise  and  lovely.  It  was 
the  discomfiture  of  the  base,  the  faithless,  the  wicked,  they 
traitors.  This  is  what  is  reflected  in  Spenser's  poem  ;/at 
once,  its  stateliness,  for  there  was  no  want  of  grandeur  and 
magnificence  in  the  public  scene  ever  before  Spenser's  im- 
agination ;  and  its  quaintness,  because  the  whole  outward 
apparatus  of  representation  was  borrowed  from  what  was 
past,  or  from  what  did  not  exist,  and  implied  surround- 
ing circumstances  in  ludicrous  contrast  with  fact,  and  men 
taught  themselves  to  speak  in  character,  and  prided  them- 
selves on  keeping  it  up  by  substituting  for  the  ordinary 
language  of  life  and  emotion  a  cumbrous  and  involved 
indirectness  of  speech. 

And  yet  that  quaint  stateliness  is  not  without  its  attrac- 
tions. We  have  indeed  to  fit  ourselves  for  it.  But  when 
we  have  submitted  to  its  demands  on  our  imagination,  it 
carries  us  along  as  much  as  the  fictions  of- the  stage.  The 
splendours  of  the  artificial  are  not  the  splendours  of  the 
natural ;  yet  the  artificial  has  its  splendours,  which  im- 
press and  captivate  and  repay.  The  grandeur  of  Spenser' s^n 
poem  is  a  grandeur  like  that  of  a  great  spectacle,  a  great 
array  of  the  forces  of  a  nation,  a  great  series  of  military 
effects,  a  great  ceremonial  assemblage  of  all  that  is  highest 
and  most  eminent  in  a  country,  a  coronation,  a  royal  mar- 
riage, a  triumph,  a  funeral.  So,  though  Spenser's  knights 
and  ladies  do  what  no  men  ever  could  do,  and  speak  what 
no  man  ever  spoke,  the  procession  rolls  forward  with  a 
pomp  which  never  forgets  itself,  and  with  an  inexhaustible _j 
succession  of  circumstance,  fantasy,  and  incident.     Nor  is 


HO  SPENSER.  [chap. 

it  always  solemn  and  high-pitched.  Its  gravity  is  relieved 
from  time  to  time  with  the  ridiculous  figure  or  character, 
the  ludicrous  incident,  the  jests  and  antics  of  the  buffoon. 
It  has  been  said  that  Spenser  never  smiles.  He  not  only 
smiles,  with  amusement  or  sly  irony;  he  wrote  what  he 
must  have  laughed  at  as  he  wrote,  and  meant  us  to  laugh 
at.  He  did  not  describe  with  a  grave  face  the  terrors  and 
misadventures  of  the  boaster  Braggadochio  and  his  Squire, 
whether  or  not  a  caricature  of  the  Dulcc  of  Alcn(;on  and 
his  "gentleman,"  the  "petit  singe,"  Simier.  He  did  not 
write  with  a  grave  face  the  Irish  row  about  the  false 
Florimcl  (IV.  5)  : 

"  Then  unto  Satyran  she  was  adjudged, 
Who  was  right  glad  to  gaine  so  goodly  meed : 
But  Blandamour  thereat  full  greatly  grudged, 
And  litle  prays'd  his  labours  evill  speed, 
That  for  to  winne  the  saddle  lost  the  steed. 
Ne  lesse  thereat  did  Paridell  complaine, 
And  thought  t'  appealc  from  that  which  was  decreed 
To  single  combat  with  Sir  Satyrane : 
Thereto  him  Ate  stird,  new  discord  to  maintaine. 

"  And  eke,  with  these,  full  many  other  Knights 
She  through  her  wicked  working  did  incense 
Her  to  demaund  and  chalenge  as  their  rights, 
Deserved  for  their  porils  recompense. 
Amongst  the  rest,  with  boastfull  vaine  pretense, 
Stept  Braggadochio  forth,  and  as  his  thrall 
Her  claym'd,  by  him  in  battell  wonne  long  sens : 
Whereto  her  selfe  he  did  to  witnesse  call : 
Who,  being  askt,  accordingly  confessed  all. 

"  Thereat  exceeding  wroth  was  Satyran ; 
And  wroth  with  Satyran  was  Blandamour ; 
And  wroth  with  Blandamour  was  Erivan ; 
And  at  them  both  Sir  Paridell  did  louft. 


v.]  THE  FAERIE  QUEENE.  141 

So  all  together  stird  up  strifull  stoure, 

And  readie  were  new  battell  to  darraine. 

Each  one  profest  to  be  her  paramoure, 

And  vow'd  with  speare  and  shield  it  to  maintaine; 

Ne  Judges  powre,  ne  reasons  rule,  mote  them  restraine." 

Nor  the  behaviour  of  the  "  rascal  many  "  at  the  sight  of 
the  dead  Dragon  (I.  12) : 

"  And  after  all  the  raskall  many  ran, 
Heaped  together  in  rude  rablcment, 
To  see  the  face  of  that  victorious  man, 
Whom  all  admired  as  from  heaven  sent, 
And  gazd  upon  with  gaping  wonderment ; 
But  when  they  came  where  that  dead  Dragon  lay, 
Stretcht  on  the  ground  in  monstrous  large  extent, 
The  sight  with  ydle  feare  did  them  dismay, 
Ne  durst  approch  him  nigh  to  touch,  or  once  assay. 

"  Some  feard,  and  fledd ;  some  feard,  and  well  it  fayned ; 
One,  that  would  wiser  seeme  then  all  the  rest, 
Warnd  him  not  touch,  for  yet  perhaps  remaynd 
Some  lingring  life  within  his  hollow  brest, 
Or  in  his  wombe  might  lurke  some  hidden  nest 
Of  many  Dragonettes,  his  f ruitfull  seedc : 
Another  saide,  that  in  his  eyes  did  rest 
Yet  sparckling  fyre,  and  badd  thereof  take  heed ; 
Another  said,  he  saw  him  move  his  eyes  indeed. 

"  One  mother,  whenas  her  foolehardy  chyld 
Did  come  too  neare,  and  with  his  talants  play, 
Halfe  dead  through  feare,  her  litle  babe  revyld, 
And  to  her  gossibs  gan  in  counsell  say ; 
1  How  can  I  tell,  but  that  his  talants  may 
Yet  scratch  my  Sonne,  or  rend  his  tender  hand  ?' 
So  diversly  them  selves  in  vaine  they  fray ; 
Whiles  some  more  bold  to  measure  him  nigh  stand, 
To  prove  how  many  acres  he  did  spred  of  land." 


142  SPENSER.  [chap. 

And  his  humour  is  not  the  less  real  that  it  affects  seri- 
ous argument,  in  the  excuse  which  he  urges  for  his  fairy 
talcs  (II.  1) : 

"  Right  well  I  wote,  most  mighty  Soveraine, 
That  all  this  famous  antique  history 
Of  some  th'  aboundance  of  an  ydle  braine 
Will  judged  be,  and  painted  forgery, 
Rather  then  matter  of  just  memory; 
Sith  none  that  breathetb  living  aire  dees  know 
Where  is  that  happy  land  of  Faery, 
Which  I  so  much  doe  vaunt,  yet  no  where  show, 
But  vouch  antiquities,  which  no  body  can  know. 

"  But  let  that  man  with  better  sence  advize. 
That  of  the  world  least  part  to  us  is  red  ; 
And  daily  how  through  hardy  enterprke 
Many  great  Regions  are  discovered, 
Which  to  late  age  were  never  mentioned. 
Who  ever  heard  of  th'  Indian  Peru  ? 
Or  who  in  venturous  vesscll  measured 
The  Amazon  huge  river,  now  found  trew  ? 
Or  f  ruitf  ullest  Virginia  who  did  ever  vew  ? 

"  Yet  all  these  were,  when  no  man  did  them  know, 
Yet  have  from  wisest  ages  hidden  beene  ; 
And  later  times  thinges  more  unknowne  shall  show. 
Why  then  should  witlesse  man  so  much  misweene, 
That  nothing  is  but  that  which  he  hath  seene  ? 
What  if  within  the  Moones  fayre  shining  sphearc, 
What  if  in  every  other  starre  unseene 
Of  other  worldes  he  happily  should  hcare, 
He  wonder  would  much  more ;  yet  such  to  some  appeare." 

The  general  effect  is  almost  always  lively  and  rich  :  all 
is  buoyant  and  full  of  movement.  That  it  is  also  odd, 
that  we  see  strange  costumes  and  hear  a  language  often 
formal  and  obsolete,  that  we  are  asked  to  take  for  granted 


v.]  THE  FAERIE  QUEENE.  143 

some  very  unaccustomed  supposition  and  extravagant  as- 
sumption, does  not  trouble  us  more  than  the  usages  and 
sights,  so  strange  to  ordinary  civil  life,  of  a  camp,  or  a 
royal  levee.  All  is  in  keeping,  whatever  may  be  the  de- 
tails of  the  pageant ;  they  harmonize  Avith  the  effect  of  the 
whole,  like  the  gargoyles  and  quaint  groups  in  a  Gothic 
building  harmonize  with  its  general  tone  of  majesty  and 
subtle  beauty; — nay,  as  ornaments,  in  themselves  of  bad 
taste,  like  much  of  the  ornamentation  of  the  Renaissance 
styles,  yet  find  a  not  unpleasing  place  in  compositions 
grandly  and  nobly  designed  : 

"  So  discord  oft  in  music  makes  the  sweeter  lay." 

Indeed,  it  is  curious  how  much  of  real  variety  is  got  out 
of  a  limited  number  of  elements  and  situations.  The 
spectacle,  though  consisting  only  of  knights,  ladies,  dwarfs, 
pagans,  "  salvage  men,"  enchanters,  and  monsters,  and  oth- 
er well-worn  machinery  of  the  books  of  chivalry,  is  ever 
new,  full  of  vigour  and  fresh  images,  even  if,  as  sometimes 
happens,  it  repeats  itself.  There  is  a  majestic  uncon- 
sciousness cf  all  violations  of  probability,  and  of  the 
strangeness  of  the  combinations  which  it  unrolls  before  us. 
f~  2.  But  there  is  not  only  stateliness :  there  is  sweetness 
and  beauty.  Spenser's  perception  of  beauty  of  all  kinds 
was  singularly  and  characteristically  quick  and  sympa- 
thetic. It  was  one  of  his  great  gifts ;  perhaps  the  most 
special  and  unstinted.  Except  Shakespere,  who  had  it 
with  other  and  greater  gifts,  no  one  in  that  time  approach- 
ed to  Spenser,  in  feeling  the  presence  of  that  commanding 
and  mysterious  idea,  compounded  of  so  many  things,  yet 
of  which  the  true  secret  escapes  us  still,  to  which  we  give 
the  name  of  beauty.  A  beautiful  scene,  a  beautiful  per- 
son, a  beautiful  poem,  a  mind  and  character  with  that  com- 


144  SPENSER.  [chap. 

bination  cf  charms,  which,  for  want  of  another  word,  wc 
call  by  that  half-spiritual,  half-material  word  "  beautiful," 
at  once  set  his  imagination  at  work  to  respond  to  it  and 
reflect  it.  His  means  of  reflecting  it  were  as  abundant  as 
his  sense  of  it  was  keen.  They  were  only  too  abundant. 
They  often  betrayed  him  by  their  affluence  and  wonderful 
readiness  to  meet  his  call.  Say  what  we  will,  and  a  great 
deal  may  be  said,  of  his  lavish  profusion,  his  heady  and 
uncontrolled  excess,  in  the  richness  of  picture  and  imagery 
in  which  he  indulges — still,  there  it  lies  before  us,  like  the 
most  gorgeous  of  summer  gardens,  in  the  glory  and  brill- 
iancy of  its  varied  blooms,  in  the  wonder  of  its  strano-e 
forms  of  life,  in  the  changeful n ess  of  its  exquisite  and  de- 
licious scents.  No  one  who  cares  for  poetic  beauty  can 
be  insensible  to  it.  He  may  criticise  it.  He  may  have 
too  much  of  it.  He  may  prefer  something  more  severe 
\jmd  chastened.  He  may  observe  on  the  waste  of  wealth 
and  power.  He  may  blame  the  prodigal  expense  of  lan- 
guage, and  the  long  spaces  which  the  poet  takes  up  to 
produce  his  effect.  He  may  often  dislike  or  distrust  the 
moral  aspect  of  the  poet's  impartial  sensitiveness  to  all  out- 
ward beauty  —  the  impartiality  which  makes  him  throw 
all  his  strength  into  his  pictures  of  Acrasia's  Bower  of 
Bliss,  the  Garden  of  Adonis,  and  Busirane's  Masque  of  Cu- 
pid. But  there  is  no  gainsaying  the  beauty  which  never 
fails  and  disappoints,  open  the  poem  where  you  will. 
There  is  no  gainsaying  its  variety,  often  so  unexpected  and 
novel.  Face  to  face  with  the  Epicurean  idea  of  beauty 
and  pleasure  is  the  counter -charm  of  purity,  truth,  and 
duty.  Many  poets  have  done  justice  to  each  one  sepa- 
rately. Few  have  shown,  with  such  equal  power,  why  it  is 
that  both  have  their  roots  in  man's  divided  nature,  and 
struggle,  as  it  were,  for  the  mastery.  \  Which  can  be  said 


v.]  THE  FAERIE  QUEEXE.  145 

to  be  the  most  exquisite  in  all  beauty  of  imagination,  of 
refined  language,  of  faultless  and  matchless  melody,  of 
these  two  passages,  in  which  the  same  image  is  used  for 
the  most  opposite  purposes ; — first,  in  that  song  of  temp- 
tation, the  sweetest  note  in  that  description  of  Acrasia's 
Bower  of  Bliss,  whicb,  as  a  picture  of  the  spells  of  pleas- 
ure, has  never  been  surpassed ;  and  next,  to  represent  that 
stainless  and  glorious  purity  which  is  the  professed  object 
of  his  admiration  and  homage.  In  both  the  beauty  of  the 
rose  furnishes  the  theme  of  the  poet's  treatment.  In  the 
first,  it  is  the  "  lovely  lay "  which  meets  the  knight  of 
Temperance  amid  the  voluptuousness  which  he  is  come  to 
assail  and  punish : 

"  The  whiles  some  one  did  chaunt  this  lovely  lay : 
Ah !  see,  whoso  fayre  thing  doest  faine  to  see, 
In  springing  flowre  the  image  of  thy  day. 
Ah  !  see  the  Virgin  Rose,  how  sweetly  shee 
Doth  first  peepe  foorth  with  bashfull  modestee, 
That  fairer  seemes  the  lesse  ye  see  her  may. 
Lo !  see  soone  after  how  more  bold  and  free 
Her  bared  bosome  she  doth  broad  display ; 
Lo !  see  soone  after  how  she  fades  and  falls  away. 

"  So  passeth,  in  the  passing  of  a  day, 
Of  mortall  life  the  leafe,  the  bud,  the  flowre ; 
Ne  more  doth  florish  after  first  decay, 
That  earst  was  sought  to  deck  both  bed  and  bowre 
Of  many  a  lady,  and  many  a  Paramowre. 
Gather  therefore  the  Rose  whilest  yet  is  prime, 
For  soone  comes  age  that  will  her  pride  deflowre ; 
Gather  the  Rose  of  love  whilest  yet  is  time, 
Whilest  loving  thou  mayst  loved  be  with  equall  crime." 

In  the  other,  it  images  the  power  of  the  will — that  pow- 
er over  circumstance  and  the  storms  of  passion,  to  com- 


/ 


14f>  SPENSER.  [chap. 

mand  obedience  to  reason  and  the  moral  law,  which  Mil- 
ton sung  so  magnificently  in  Comus : 

"  That  daintie  Rose,  the  daughter  of  her  Morne, 
More  deare  then  life  she  tendered,  whose  flowre 
The  girlond  of  her  honour  did  adorne : 
Ne  suffred  she  the  Middayes  scorching  powre, 
Ne  the  sharp  Northerne  wind  thereon  to  showre ; 
But  lapped  up  her  silken  leaves  most  chayre, 
When  so  the  f roward  skye  began  to  lowre ; 
But,  soone  as  calmed  was  the  christall  ayre, 
She  did  it  fayre  dispred  and  let  to  florish  fayre. 

"Eternall  God,  in  his  almightie  powre, 
To  make  ensample  of  his  heavenly  grace, 
In  Paradize  whylome  did  plant  this  flowre ; 
Whence  he  it  fetcht  out  of  her  native  place, 
And  did  in  stocke  of  earthly  flesh  enrace, 
That  mortall  men  her  glory  should  admyre. 
In  gentle  Ladies  breste,  and  bounteous  race 
Of  woman  kind,  it  fayrest  Flowre  doth  spyre, 
And  beareth  fruit  of  houour  and  all  chast  desyre. 

"  Fayre  ympes  of  beautie,  whose  bright  shining  beames 
Adorne  the  worlde  with  like  to  heavenly  light, 
And  to  your  willes  both  royalties  and  Reames 
Subdew,  through  conquest  of  your  wondrous  might, 
With  this  fayre  flowre  your  goodly  girlonds  dight 
Of  chastity  and  vertue  virginall, 
That  shall  embellish  more  your  beautie  bright, 
And  crowne  your  heades  with  heavenly  coronall, 
Such  as  the  Angels  weare  before  God's  tribunall !" 

This  sense  of  beauty  and  command  of  beautiful  expres- 
sion is  not  seen  only  in  the  sweetness  of  which  both  these 
passages  are  examples.  Its  range  is  wide.  Spenser  had 
in  his  nature,  besides  sweetness,  his  full  proportion  of  the 
stern  and  high  manliness  of  his  generation ;  indeed,  he 
was  not  without  its  severity,  its  hardness,  its  unconsidering 


v.]  THE  FAERIE  QUEENE.  14  7 

and  cruel  harshness,  its  contemptuous  indifference  to  suf- 
fering and  misery  when  on  the  wrong  side.  Noble  and 
heroic  ideals  captivate  him  by  their  attractions.  He  kin- 
dles naturally  and  genuinely  at  what  proves  and  draws  out 
men's  courage,  their  self-command,  their  self-sacrifice.  He 
s}-mpathizes  as  profoundly  with  the  strangeness  of  their 
condition,  with  the  sad  surprises  in  their  history  and  fate, 
as  he  gives  himself  up  with  little  restraint  to  what  is 
charming;  and  even  intoxicating  in  it.  He  can  moralize 
with  the  best  in  terse  and  deep-reaching  apophthegms  of 
melancholy  or  even  despairing  experience.  He  can  appre- 
ciate the  mysterious  depths  and  awful  outlines  of  theology 
— of  what  our  own  age  can  see  nothing  in,  but  a  dry  and 
scholastic  dogmatism.  His  great  contemporaries  were — 
more,  perhaps,  than  the  men  of  any  age — many-sided.  He 
shared  their  nature ;  and  he  used  all  that  he  had  of  sensi- 
tiveness and  of  imaginative  and  creative  power,  in  bring- 
ing out  its  manifold  aspects,  and  sometimes  contradictory 
feelings  and  aims.  Not  that  beauty,  even  varied  beauty, 
is  the  uninterrupted  attribute  of  his  work.  It  alternates 
with  much  that  no  indulgence  can  call  beautiful.  It 
passes  but  too  easily  into  what  is  commonplace,  or  forced, 
or  unnatural,  or  extravagant,  or  careless  and  poor,  or  really 
coarse  and  bad.  He  was  a  negligent  corrector.  He  only 
at  times  gave  himself  the  trouble  to  condense  and  concen- 
trate. But  for  all  this,  the  Faerie  Queene  glows  and  is 
ablaze  with  beauty ;  and  that  beauty  is  so  rich,  so  real, 
and  so  uncommon,  that  for  its  sake  the  severest  readers  of 
Spenser  have  pardoned  much  that  is  discordant  with  it — 
much  that  in  the  reading  has  wasted  their  time  and  disap- 
pointed them. 

There  is  one  portion  of  the  beauty  of  the  Faerie  Queene 
which  in  its  perfection  and  fulness  had  never  yet  been 


1  is  SPENSER.  [chap. 

reached  in  English  poetry.  This  was  the  music  and  mel- 
ody of  his  verse.  It  was  this  wonderful,  almost  unfailing 
sweetness  of  numbers  which  probably  as  much  as  anything 
set  the  Faerie  Queene  at  once  above  all  contemporary  poe- 
try. The  English  language  is  really  a  musical  one,  and, 
say  what  people  will,  the  English  ear  is  very  susceptihle  to 
the  infinite  delicacy  and  suggestiveness  of  musical  rhythm 
and  cadence.  Spenser  found  the  secret  of  it.  The  art 
has  had  many  and  consummate  masters  since,  as  different 
in  their  melody  as  in  their  thoughts  from  Spenser.  And 
others  at  the  time,  Shakespere  pre-eminently,  heard,  only 
a  little  later,  the  same  grandeur  and  the  same  subtle  beau- 
ty in  the  sounds  of  their  mother-tongue,  only  waiting  the 
artist's  skill  to  be  combined  and  harmonized  into  strains 
of  mysterious  fascination.  But  Spenser  was  the  first  to 
show  that  he  had  acquired  a  command  over  what  had 
hitherto  been  heard  only  in  exquisite  fragments,  passing 
too  soon  into  roughness  and  confusion.  It  would  be  too 
much  to  say  that  his  cunning  never  fails,  that  his  ear  is 
never  dull  or  off  its  guard.  But  when  the  length  and 
magnitude  of  the  composition  are  considered,  with  the  re- 
'  straints  imposed  by  the  new  nine-line  stanza,  however  con- 
venient it  may  have  been,  the  vigour,  the  invention,  the  vol- 
ume and  rush  of  language,  and  the  keenness  and  truth  of  ear 
amid  its  diversified  tasks,  are  indeed  admirable  which  could 
keep  up  so  prolonged  and  so  majestic  a  stream  of  original 
and  varied  poetical  melody.  If  his  stanzas  are  monoto- 
nous, it  is  with  the  grand  monotony  of  the  sea-shore,  where 
billow  follows  billow,  each  swelling  diversely,  and  broken 
into  different  curves  and  waves  upon  its  mounting  surface, 
till  at  last  it  falls  over,  and  spreads  and  rushes  up  in  a  last 
long  line  of  foam  upon  the  boach. 

3.  But  all  this  is  but  the  outside  shell  and  the  fancy 


v.]  THE  FAERIE  QUEEXE.  149 

framework  in  which  the  substance  of  the  poem  is  enclosed. 
Its  substance  is  the  poet's  philosophy  of  life.  It  shadows 
forth,  in  type  and  parable,  his  ideal  of  the  perfection  of 
the  human  character,  with  its  special  features,  its  trials,  its 
achievements.  There  were  two  accepted  forms  in  poetry 
in  which  this  had  been  done  by  poets.  One  was  under 
the  imajre  of  warfare:  the  other  was  under  the  imacje  of  a 
journey  or  voyage.  Spenser  chose  the  former,  as  Dante 
and  Banyan  chose  the  latter.  Spenser  looks  on  the  scene 
of  the  world  as  a  continual  battle-field.  It  was  such,  in 
fact,  to  his  experience  in  Ireland,  testing  the  mettle  of  char- 
acter, its  loyalty,  its  sincerity,  its  endurance.  His  picture 
of  character  is  by  no  means  painted  with  sentimental  ten- 
derness. He  portrays  it  in  the  rough  work  of  the  strug- 
gle and  the  toil,  always  hardly  tested  by  trial,  often  over- 
matched, deceived,  defeated,  and  even  delivered  by  its  own 
default  to  disgrace  and  captivity.  He  had  full  before  his 
eyes  what  abounded  in  the  society  of  his  day,  often  in 
its  noblest  representatives — the  strange  perplexing  mixt- 
ure of  the  purer  with  the  baser  elements,  in  the  high-tem- 
pered and  aspiring  activity  of  his  time.  But  it  was  an 
ideal  of  character  which  had  in  it  high  aims  and  serious 
purposes,  which  was  armed  with  fortitude  and  strength, 
which  could  recover  itself  after  failure  and  defeat. 

The  unity  of  a  story,  or  an  allegory  —  that  chain  and 
backbone  of  continuous  interest,  implying  a  progress  and 
leading  up  to  a  climax,  which  holds  together  the  great 
poems  of  the  world,  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey,  the  ^Jneid, 
the  Commedia,  the  Paradise  Lost,  the  Jerusalem  Delivered 
— this  is  wanting  in  the  Faerie  Quccne.  The  unity  is  one 
of  character  and  its  ideal.  That  character  of  the  com- 
pleted man,  raised  above  what  is  poor  and  low,  and  gov- 
erned by  noble  tempers  and  pure  principles,  has  in  Spenser 


150  SPEXSER.  [chap. 

two  conspicuous  elements.     In  the  first  place,  it  is  based 
on  manliness.      In  the  personages  which  illustrate  the  dif- 
ferent virtues — Holiness,  Justice,  Courtesy,  and  the  rest — 
the  distinction  is  not  in  nicely  discriminated  features  or 
shades  of  expression,  but  in  the  trials  and  the  occasions 
which  call  forth  a  particular  action  or  effort:    yet  the 
manliness  which  is  at  the  foundation  of  all  that  is  good  in 
them  is  a  universal  quality  common  to  them  all,  rooted 
and  imbedded  in  the  governing  idea  or  standard  of  moral 
character  in  the  poem.     It  is  not  merely  courage,  it  is  not 
merely  energy,  it  is  not  merely  strength,.-  It  is  the  quali- 
ty of  soul  which  frankly  accepts  the  conditions  in  human 
life,  of  labour,  of  obedience,  of  effort,  of  unequal  success, 
which  does  not  quarrel  with  them  or  evade  them,  but  takes 
for  granted  with  unquestioning  alacrity  that  man  is  called 
— by  his  call  to  high  aims  and  destiny — to  a  continual 
struggle  with  difficulty,  with  pain,  with  evil,  and  makes  it 
the  point  of  honour  not  to  be  dismayed  or  wearied  out  by 
them.     It  is  a  cheerful  and  serious  willingness  for  hard 
work  and  endurance,  as  being  inevitable  and  very  bearable 
necessities,  together  with  even  a  pleasure  in  encountering 
trials  which  put  a  man  on  his  mettle,  an  enjoyment  of  the 
contest  and  the  risk,  even  in  play.     It  is  the  quality  which 
seizes  on  the  paramount  idea  of  duty,  as  something  which 
leaves  a  man  no  choice ;  which  despises  and  breaks  through 
the  inferior  considerations  and  motives  —  trouble,  uncer- 
tainty, doubt,  curiosity —  which  hang  about  and  impede 
duty;  which  is  impatient  with  the  idleness  and  childish- 
ness of  a  life  of  mere  amusement,  or  mere  looking  on,  of 
continued  and  self-satisfied  levity,  of  vacillation,  of  Clevel- 
and ingenious  trifling.     Spenser's  manliness  is  quite  con- 
sistent with  long  pauses  of  rest,  with  intervals  of  change, 
with  great  craving  for  enjoyment — nay,  with  great  lapses 


v.]  THE  FAERIE  QUEENE.  151 

from  its  ideal,  with  groat  mixtures  of  seJfeliBess,  with 
coarseness,  with  licentiousness,  with  injustice  and  inhuman- 
ity. It  may  be  fatally  diverted  into  bad  channels;  it  may 
degenerate  into  a  curse  and  scourge  to  the  world.  But  it 
stands  essentially  distinct  from  the  nature  which  shrinks 
from  difficulty,  which  is  appalled  at  effort,  which  has  no 
thought  of  making  an  impression  on  things  around  it, 
which  is  content  with  passively  receiving  influences  and 
distinguishing  between  emotions,  which  feels  no  call  to  ex- 
ert itself,  because  it  recognizes  no  aim  valuable  enough  to 
rouse  it,  and  no  obligation  strong  enough  to  command  it. 
In  the  character  of  his  countrymen  round  him,  in  its  high- 
est and  in  its  worst  features,  in  its  noble  ambition,  its  dar- 
ing enterprise,  its  self-devotion,  as  well  as  in  its  pride,  its 
intolerance,  its  fierce  self-will,  its  arrogant  claims  of  superi- 
ority— moral,  political,  religious — Spenser  saw  the  example 
of  that  strong  and  resolute  manliness  which,  once  set  on 
great  things,  feared  nothing — neither  toil  nor  disaster  nor 
danger — in  their  pursuit.  Naturally  and  unconsciously,  he 
laid  it  at  the  bottom  of  all  his  portraitures  of  noble  and 
virtuous  achievement  in  the  Faerie  Queen?. 

All  Spensers  "virtues"  spring  from  a  root  of  manli- 
ness. Strength,  simplicity  of  aim,  elevation  of  spirit,  cour- 
age are  presupposed  as  their  necessary  conditions.  But 
they  have  with  him  another  condition  as  universal.  They 
all  grow  and  are  nourished  from  the  soil  of  love ;  the  love 
ofjbeauty,  the  love  and  service  of  fair  women.  This,  of 
course,  is  a  survival  from  the  ages  of  chivalry,  an  inheri- 
tance bequeathed  from  the  minstrels  of  France,  Italy,  and 
Germany  to  the  rising  poetry  of  Europe.  Spenser's  types 
of  manhood  are  imperfect  without  the  idea  of  an  absorb- 
ing and  overmastering  passion  of  love;  without  a  devo- 
tion, as  to  the  principal  and  most  worthy  object  of  life,  to 


152  SPENSER.  [chap. 

the  service  of  a  beautiful  lady,  and  to  winning  her  affec- 
tion  and  grace.  The  influence  of  this  view  of  life  comes 
out  in  numberless  ways.  Love  comes  on  the  scene  in 
shapes  which  are  exquisitely  beautiful,  in  all  its  purity,  its 
tenderness,  its  unselfishness.  But  the  claims  of  its  all-rul- 
ing and  irresistible  might  are  also  only  too  readily  verified 
in  the  passions  of  men  ;  in  the  follies  of  love,  its  entangle- 
ments, its  mischiefs,  its  foulness.  In  one  shape  or  another 
it  meets  us  at  every  turn ;  it  is  never  absent;  it  is  the  mo- 
tive and  stimulant  of  the  whole  activity  of  the  poem.  The 
picture  of  life  held  up  before  us  is  the  literal  rendering  of 
Coleridge's  lines : 


o 


"All  thoughts,  all  passions,  all  delights, 
Whatever  stirs  this  mortal  frame, 
Arc  all  but  ministers  of  Love, 

And  feed  his  sacred  flame." 

We  still  think  with  Spenser  about  the  paramount  place  of 
manliness,  as  the  foundation  of  all  worth  in  human  char- 
acter. We  have  ceased  to  think  with  him  about  the  right- 
ful supremacy  of  love,  even  in  the  imaginative  conception 
of  human  life.  We  have  ceased  to  recognize  in  it  the 
public  claims  of  almost  a  religion,  which  it  has  in  Spenser. 
Love  will  ever  play  a  great  part  in  human  life  to  the  end 
of  time.  It  will  be  an  immense  element  in  its  happiness, 
perhaps  a  still  greater  one  in  its  sorrows,  its  disasters,  its 
tragedies.  It  is  still  an  immense  power  in  shaping  and 
colouring  it,  both  in  fiction  and  reality;  in  the  family,  in 
the  romance,  in  the  fatalities  and  the  prosaic  ruin  of  vul- 
gar fact.  But  the  place  given  to  it  by  Spenser  is  to  our 
thoughts  and  feelings  even  ludicrously  extravagant.  An 
enormous  change  has  taken  place  in  the  ideas  of  society 
on  this  point :  it  is  one  of  the  things  which  make  a  wide 


v.]  THE  FAERIE  QUEEXE.  153 

chasm  between  centuries  and  generations  which  yet  are  of 
"  the  same  passions,"  and  have  in  temper,  tradition,  and 
language  so  much  in  common.  The  ages  of  the  Courts 
of  Love,  whom  Chaucer  reflected,  and  whose  ideas  passed 
on  through  him  to  Spenser,  are  to  us  simply  strange  and 
abnormal  states  through  which  society  has  passed,  to  us 
beyond  understanding  and  almost  belief.  The  perpetual 
love-making,  as  one  of  the  first  duties  and  necessities  of 
a  noble  life,  the  space  which  it  must  fill  in  the  cares  and 
thoughts  of  all  gentle  and  high-reaching  spirits,  the  unre- 
strained language  of  admiration  and  worship,  the  unre- 
strained yielding  to  the  impulses,  the  anxieties,  the  pitiable 
despair  and  agonies  of  love,  the  subordination  to  it  of  all 
other  pursuits  and  aims,  the  weeping  and  wailing  and  self- 
torturing  which  it  involves,  all  this  is  so  far  apart  from 
what  we  know  of  actual  life,  the  life  not  merely  of  work 
and  business,  but  the  life  of  affection,  and  ev.cn  of  passion, 
that  it  makes  the  picture  of  which  it  is  so  necessary  a 
part  seem  to  us  in  the  last  degree  unreal,  unimaginable, 
grotesquely  ridiculous.  The  quaint  love  sometimes  found 
among  children,  so  quickly  kindled,  so  superficial,  so  vio- 
lent in  its  language  and  absurd  in  its,  plans,  is  transferred 
with  the  utmost  gravity  to  the  serious  proceedings  of  the 
wise  and  good.  In  the  highest  characters  it  is  chasten- 
jjch  refined,  purified  :  it  appropriates,  indeed,  language  due 
only  to  the  divine,  it  almost  simulates  idolatry,  yet  it  be- 
longs to  the  best  part  of  man's  nature.  But  in  the  lower 
and  average  characters  it  is  not  so  respectable ;  it  is  apt 
to  pass  into  mere  toying  pastime  and  frivolous  love  of 
pleasure  :  it  astonishes  us  often  by  the  readiness  with 
■which  it  displays  an  affinity  for  the  sensual  and  impure, 
the  corrupting  and  debasing  sides  of  the  relations  between 
the  sexes.     But  however  it  appears,  it  is  throughout  a  very 


154  SPENSER.  [chap. 

great  affair,  not  merely  with  certain  persons,  or  under  cer- 
tain circumstances,  but  with  every  one :  it  obtrudes  itself 
in  public,  as  the  natural  and  recognized  motive  of  plans  of 
life  and  trials  of  strength ;  it  is  the  great  spur  of  enter- 
prise, and  its  highest  and  most  glorious  reward.  A  world 
of  which  this  is  the  law,  is  not  even  in  fiction  a  world 
which  we  can  conceive  possible,  or  with  which  experience 
enables  us  to  sympathize. 

It  is,  of  course,  a  purely  artificial  and  conventional  read- 
ino-  of  the  facts  of  human  life  and  feeling.  Such  conven- 
tional  readings  and  renderings  belong  in  a  measure  to  all 
art ;  but  in  its  highest  forms  they  are  corrected,  inter- 
preted, supplemented  by  the  presence  of  interspersed  reali- 
ties which  every  one  recognizes.  But  it  was  one  of  Spen- 
ser's disadvantages,  that  two  strong  influences  combined 
to  entangle  him  in  this  fantastic  and  grotesque  way  of  ex- 
hibiting the  play  and  action  of  the  emotions  of  love.  This 
all-absorbing,  all-embracing  passion  of  love,  at  least  this 
way  of  talking  about  it,  was  the  fashion  of  the  Court. 
Further,  it  was  the  fashion  of  poetry,  which  he  inherited ; 
and  he  was  not  the  man  to  break  through  the  strong 
bands  of  custom  and  authority.  In  very  much  he  was 
an  imitator.  He  took  what  he  found;  what  was  his  own 
was  his  treatment  of  it.  He  did  not  trouble  himself  with 
inconsistencies,  or  see  absurdities  and  incongruities.  Hab- 
it and  familiar  language  made  it  not  strange  that  in  the 
Court  of  Elizabeth  the  most  high-flown  sentiments  should 
be  in  every  one's  mouth  about  the  sublimities  and  refine- 
ments of  love,  while  every  one  was  busy  with  keen  ambi- 
tion and  unscrupulous  intrigue.  The  same  blinding  pow- 
er kept  him  from  seeing  the  monstrous  contrast  between 
the  claims  of  the  queen  to  be  the  ideal  of  womanly  purity 
— claims  recognized  and  echoed  in  ten  thousand  cxtrava- 


v.]  THE  FAERIE  QUEENE.  155 

gant  compliments — and  the  real  licentiousness  common  all 
round  her  among  her  favourites.  All  these  strange  con- 
tradictions, which  surprise  and  shock  us,  Spenser  assumed 
as  natural.  lie  built  up  his  fictions  on  them,  as  the  dram- 
atist built  on  a  basis  which,  though  more  nearly  approach- 
ing to  real  life,  yet  differed  widely  from  it  in  many  of  its 
preliminary  and  collateral  suppositions ;  or  as  the  novelist 
builds  up  his  on  a  still  closer  adherence  to  facts  and  expe- 
rience. In  this  matter  Spenser  appears  with  a  kind  of 
double  self.  At  one  time  he  speaks  as  one  penetrated  and 
inspired  by  the  highest  and  purest  ideas  of  love,  and  filled 
with  aversion  and  scorn  for  the  coarser  forms  of  passion — 
for  what  is  ensnaring  and  treacherous,  as  well  as  for  what 
is  odious  and  foul.  At  another,  he  puts  forth  all  his  pow- 
er to  bring  out  its  most  dangerous  and  even  debasing  as- 
pects in  highly  coloured  pictures,  which  none  could  paint 
without  keen  sympathy  with  what  he  takes  such  pains  to 
make  vivid  and  fascinating.  The  combination  is  not  like 
anything  modern,  for  both  the  elements  are  in  Spenser  so 
unquestionably  and  simply  genuine.  Our  modern  poets 
are,  with  all  their  variations  in  this  respect,  more  homoge- 
neous ;  and  where  one  conception  of  love  and  beauty  has 
taken  hold  of  a  man,  the  other  does  not  easily  come  in. 
It  is  impossible  to  imagine  Wordsworth  dwelling  with  zest 
on  visions  and  imagery,  on  which  Spenser  has  lavished  all 
his  riches.  There  can  be  no  doubt  of  Byron's  real  habits 
of  thought  and  feeling  on  subjects  of  this  kind,  even  when 
his  lan<mao-e  for  the  occasion  is  the  chastest ;  we  detect  in 
it  the  mood  of  the  moment,  perhaps  spontaneous,  perhaps 
put  on,  but  in  contradiction  to  the  whole  movement  of  the 
man's  true  nature.  But  Spenser's  words  do  not  ring  hol- 
low. With  a  kind  of  unconsciousness  and  innocence,  which 
we  now  find  hard  to  understand,  and  which,  perhaps,  be- 


15G  SPENSER.  [char 

longs  to  the  early  childhood  or  boyhood  of  a  literature, 
lie  passes  abruptly  from  one  standard  of  thought  and  feel- 
ing to  another;  and  is  quite  as  much  in  earnest  when  he 
is  singing  the  pure  joys  of  chastened  affections,  as  he  is 
when  he  is  writing  with  almost  riotous  luxuriance  what 
we  are  at  this  day  ashamed  to  read.  Tardily,  indeed,  he 
appears  to  have  acknowledged  the  contradiction.  At  the 
instance  of  two  noble  ladies  of  the  Court,  he  composed 
two  Hymns  of  Heavenly  Love  and  Heavenly  Beauty,  to 
"retract"  and  "reform"  two  earlier  ones  composed  in 
praise  of  earthly  love  and  beauty.  But,  characteristically, 
he  published  the  two  pieces  together,  side  by  side  in  the 
same  volume. 

In  the  Faerie  Queene,  Spenser  has  brought  out,  not  the 
image  of  the  great  Gloriana,  but  in  its  various  aspects  a 
form  of  character  which  was  then  just  coming  on  the 
stage  of  the  world,  and  which  has  played  a  great  part  in 
it  since.  As  he  has  told  us,  he  aimed  at  presenting  be- 
fore us,  in  the  largest  sense  of  the  word,  the  English  .<rcn- 
leman.  It  was,  as  a  whole,  a  new  character  in  the  world. 
It  hacl  not  really  existed  in  the  days  of  feudalism  and 
chivalry,  though  features  of  it  had  appeared,  and  its  de- 
scent was  traced  from  those  times :  but  they  were  too  wild 
and  coarse,  too  turbulent  and  disorderly,  for  a  character 
which,  however  ready  for  adventure  and  battle,  looked  to 
peace,  refinement,  order,  and  law  as  the  true  conditions  of 
its  perfection.  In  the  days  of  Elizabeth  it  was  beginning 
to  fill  a  large  place  in  English  life.  It  was  formed  amid 
the  increasing  cultivation  of  the  nation,  the  increasing  va- 
rieties of  public  service,  the  awakening  responsibilities  to 
duty  and  calls  to  self-command.  Still  making  much  of 
the  prerogative  of  noble  blood  and  family  honours,  it  was 
something  independent  of  nobility  and  beyond  it.     A  no- 


r.]  THE  FAERIE  QUEEXE.  137 

bleman  might  have  in  him  the  making  of  a  gentleman : 
but  it  was  the  man  himself  of  whom  the  gentleman  was 
made.  Great  birth,  even  great  capacity,  were  not  enough ; 
there  must  be  added  a  new  delicacy  of  conscience,  a  new 
appreciation  of  what  is  beautiful  and  worthy  of  honour,  a 
new  measure  of  the  strength  and  nobleness  of  self-controh 
of  devotion  to  unselfish  interests.  This  idea  of  manhood, 
based  not  only  on  force  and  courage,  but  on  truth,  or 
refinement,  on  public  spirit,  on  soberness  and  modesty 
on  consideration  for  others,  was  taking  possession  of  the! 
younger  generation  of  Elizabeth's  middle  years.  Of  course 
the  idea  was  very  imperfectly  apprehended,  still  more  im- 
perfectly realized.  But  it  was  something  which  on  the 
same  scale  had  not  been  yet,  and  which  was  to  be  the 
seed  of  something  greater.  It  was  to  grow  into  those 
strong,  simple,  noble  characters,  pure  in  aim  and  devoted 
to  duty,  the  Falklands,  the  Hampdens,  Avho  amid  so  much 
evil  form  such  a  remarkable  feature  in  the  Civil  Wars, 
both  on  the  Royalist  and  the  Parliamentary  sides.  It  was 
to  grow  into  that  high  type  of  cultivated  English  nature, 
in  the  present  and  the  last  century,  common  both  to  its 
monarchical  and  its  democratic  embodiments,  than  which, 
with  all  its  faults  and  defects,  our  western  civilization  has 
produced  few  things  more  admirable. 

There  were  three  distinguished  men  of  that  time,  who 
one  after  another  were  Spenser's  friends  and  patrons,  and 
who  were  men  in  whom  he  saw  realized  his  conceptions  of 
human  excellence  and  nobleness.  They  were  Sir  Philip 
Sidney,  Lord  Grey  of  Wilton,  and  Sir  Walter  Ralegh :  and 
the  Fa£rie  Queene  reflects,  as  in  a  variety  of  separate  mir- 
rors and  spiritualized  forms,  the  characteristics  of  these 
men  and  of  such  as  they.  It  reflects  their  conflicts,  their 
temptations,  their  weaknesses,  the  evils  they  fought  with, 


158  SPENSER.  [chap. 

the  superiority  with  which  they  towered  over  meaner  and 
poorer  natures.  Sir  Philip  Sidney  may  be  said  to  have 
been  the  first  typical  example  in  English  society  of  the 
true  gentleman.  The  charm  which  attracted  men  to  him 
in  life,  the  fame  which  he  left  behind  him,  are  not  to  be 
accounted  for  simply  by  his  accomplishments  as  a  courtier, 
a  poet,  a  lover  of  literature,  a  gallant  soldier;  above  all 
this,  there  was  something  not  found  in  the  strong  or  brill- 
iant men  about  him,  a  union  and  harmony  of  all  high 
qualities  differing  from  any  of  them  separately,  which 
gave  a  fire  of  its  own  to  his  literary  enthusiasm,  and  a 
sweetness  of  its  own  to  his  courtesy.  Spenser's  admira- 
tion for  that  bright  but  short  career  was  strong  and  last- 
ing. Sidney  was  to  him  a  verification  of  what  he  aspired 
to  and  imagined ;  a  pledge  that  he  was  not  dreaming,  in 
portraying  Prince  Arthur's  greatness  of  soul,  the  religious 
chivalry  of  the  Red  Cross  Knight  of  Holiness,  the  manly 
x  purity  and  self-control  of  Sir  Guyon.  It  is  too  much  to 
say  that  in  Prince  Arthur,  the  hero  of  the  poem,  he  always 
intended  Sidney.  In  the  first  place,  it  is  clear  that  un- 
der that  character  Spenser  in  places  pays  compliments  to 
Leicester,  in  whose  service  he  began  life,  and  whose  claims 
on  his  homage  he  ever  recognized.  Prince  Arthur  is  cer- 
tainly Leicester,  in  the  historical  passages  in  the  Fifth  Booh 
relating  to  the  war  in  the  Low  Countries  in  15T6:  and 
no  one  can  be  meant  but  Leicester  in  the  bold  allusion  in 
the  First  Book  (ix.  17)  to  Elizabeth's  supposed  thoughts  of 
marrying  him.  In  the  next  place,  allegory,.like  caricature, 
is  not  bound  to  make  the  same  person  and  the  same  image 
always  or  perfectly  coincide ;  and  Spenser  makes  full  use 
of  this  liberty.  But  when  he  was  painting  the  picture  of 
the  Kingly  Warrior,  in  whom  was  to  be  summed  up  in  a 
magnificent  unity  the  diversified  graces  of  other  men,  and 


v.]  THE  FAERIE  QTJEENE.  169 

who  was  to  bo  ever  ready  to  help  and  support  his  fellows 
in  their  hour  of  need,  and  in  their  conflict  with  evil,  he 
certainly  had  before  his  mind  the  well -remembered  lin- 
eaments of  Sidney's  high  and  generous  nature.  And  he 
further  dedicated  a  separate  book,  the  last  that  he  com- 
pleted, to  the  celebration  of  Sidney's  special  "  virtue  "  of 
Courtesy.  The  martial  strain  of  the  poem  changes  once 
more  to  the  pastoral  of  the  Shepherd's  Calendar  to  de- 
scribe Sidney's  wooing  of  Frances  "Walsingham,  the  fair 
Pastorella;  his  conquests,  by  his  sweetness  and  grace,  over 
the  churlishness  of  rivals;  and  his  triumphant  war  against 
the  monster  spirit  of  ignorant  and  loud-tongued  insolence, 
the  "Blatant  Beast"  of  religious,  political,  and  social 
slander. 

Again,  in  Lord  Grey  of  AVilton,  gentle  by  nature,  but  so 
stern  in  the  hour  of  trial,  called  reluctantly  to  cope  not 
only  with  anarchy,  but  with  intrigue  and  disloyalty,  finding 
selfishness  and  thanldessness  everywhere,  but  facing  all 
and  doing  his  best  with  a  heavy  heart,  and  ending  his  days 
prematurely  under  detraction  and  disgrace,  Spenser  had 
before  him  a  less  complete  character  than  Sidney,  but  yet 
one  of  grand  and  severe  manliness,  in  which  were  con- 
spicuous a  religious  hatred  of  disorder,  and  an  unflinch- 
ing sense  of  public  duty.  Spenser's  admiration  of  him 
was  sincere  and  earnest.  In  his  case  the  allegory  almost 
becomes  history.  Arthur,  Lord  Grey,  is  Sir  Arthegal,  the 
Knight  of  Justice.  The  story  touches,  apparently,  on  some 
passages  of  his  career,  when  his  dislike  of  the  French  mar- 
riage placed  him  in  opposition  to  the  Queen,  and  even  for 
a  time  threw  him  with  the  supporters  of  Mary.  But  tho 
adventures  of  Arthegal  mainly  preserve  the  memory  of 
Lord  Grey's  terrible  exploits  against  wrong  and  rebellion 
in  Ireland.     These  exploits  are  represented  in  the  doings 


1G0  SPENSER.  [chap. 

of  the  iron  man  Talus,  his  squire,  with  his  destroying  flail, 
swift,  irresistible,  inexorable ;  a  figure,  borrowed  and  alter- 
ed, after  Spenser's  wont,  from  a  Greek  legend.  His  over- 
throw of  insolent  giants,  his  annihilation  of  swarming 
"  rascal  routs,"  idealize  and  glorify  that  unrelenting  pol- 
icy, of  which,  though  condemned  in  England,  Spenser  con- 
tinued to  be  the  advocate.  In  the  story  of  Avthegal,  long 
separated  by  undeserved  misfortunes  from  the  favour  of 
the  armed  lady,  Britomart,  the  virgin  champion  of  right, 
of  whom  he  was  so  worthy,  doomed  in  spite  of  his  hon- 
ours to  an  early  death,  and  assailed  on  his  return  from  his 
victorious  service  by  the  furious  insults  of  envy  and  mal- 
ice, Spenser  portrays,  almost  without  a  veil,  the  hard  fate 
of  the  unpopular  patron  whom  he  to  the  last  defended  and 
honoured. 

Ralegh,  his  last  protector,  the  Shepherd  of  the  Ocean, 
to  whose  judgment  he  referred  the  work  of  his  life,  and 
under  whose  guidance  he  once  more  tried  the  quicksands 
of  the  Court,  belonged  to  a  different  class  from  Sidney  or 
Lord  Grey  ;  but  of  his  own  class  he  was  the  consummate 
and  matchless  example.  He  had  not  Sidney's  fine  enthu- 
siasm and  nobleness;  he  had  not  either  Sidney's  affecta- 
tions. He  had  not  Lord  Grey's  single-minded  hatred  of 
wrong.  He  was  a  man  to  whom  his  own  interests  were 
much;  he  was  unscrupulous;  he  was  ostentatious;  he  was 
not  above  stooping  to  mean,  unmanly  compliances  with 
the  humours  of  the  Queen.  But  he  was  a  man  with  a 
higher  ideal  than  he  attempted  to  follow.  He  saw,  not 
without  cynical  scorn,  through  the  shows  and  hollowness 
of  the  world.  His  intellect  was  of  that  clear  and  unem- 
barrassed power  which  takes  in  as  wholes  things  which 
other  men  take  in  part  by  part.  And  he  was  in  its  high- 
est form  a  representative  of  that  spirit  of  adventure  into 


v.]  THE  FAERIE  QUEENE.  161 

the  unknown  and  the  wonderful  of  which  Drake  was  the 
coarser  and  rougher  example,  realizing  in  serious  earnest, 
on  the  sea  and  in  the  New  World,  the  life  of  knight- 
errantry  feigned  in  romances.  With  Ralegh,  as  with  Lord 
Grey,  Spenser  comes  to  history ;  and  he  even  seems  to 
have  been  moved,  as  the  poem  went  on,  partly  by  pity, 
partly  by  amusement,  to  shadow  forth  in  his  imaginary 
world,  not  merely  Ralegh's  brilliant  qualities,  but  also  bis 
frequent  misadventures  and  mischances  in  his  career  at 
Court.  Of  all  her  favourites,  Ralegh  was  the  one  whom 
his  wayward  mistress  seemed  to  find  most  delight  in  tor- 
menting. The  offence  which  he  gave  by  his  secret  mar- 
riage suggested  the  scenes  describing  the  utter  desolation 
of  Prince  Arthur's  squire,  Timias,  at  the  jealous  wrath  of 
the  Virgin  Huntress,  Belphoebe — scenes  which,  extrava- 
gant as  they  are,  can  hardly  be  called  a  caricature  of 
Ralegh's  real  behaviour  in  the  Tower  in  1593.  But  Spen- 
ser is  not  satisfied  with  this  one  picture.  In  the  last  Book 
Timias  appears  again,  the  victim  of  slander  and  ill-usage, 
even  after  he  had  recovered  Belphoebe's  favour;  he  is 
baited  like  a  wild  bull,  by  mighty  powers  of  malice,  false- 
hood, and  calumny ;  he  is  wounded  by  the  tooth  of  the 
Blatant  Beast ;  and  after  having  been  cured,  not  without 
difficulty,  and  not  without  significant  indications  on  the 
part  of  the  poet  that  his  friend  had  need  to  restrain  and 
chasten  his  unruly  spirit,  he  is  again  delivered  over  to  an 
ignominious  captivity,  and  the  insults  of  Disdain  and 
Scorn. 

"  Then  up  he  made  him  rise,  and  forward  fare, 
Led  in  a  rope  which  both  his  hands  did  bynd ; 
Ne  ought  that  foole  for  pity  did  him  spare, 
But  with  his  whip,  him  following  behynd, 
Him  often  scourg'd,  and  forst  his  feete  to  fynd : 
8 


162  SPEXSER  [chap. 

And  other-whiles  with  bitter  inockes  and  mowes 

He  would  him  scorne,  that  to  his  gentle  mynd 

Was  much  more  grievous  then  the  others  blowes : 

Words  sharpely  wound,  but  greatest  griefe  of  scorning  growes." 

Spenser  knew  Ralegh  only  in  the  promise  of  his  ad- 
venturous prime — so  buoyant  and  fearless,  so  inexhausti- 
ble in  project  and  resource,  so  unconquerable  by  checks 
and  reverses.  The  gloomier  portion  of  Ralegh's  career 
was  yet  to  come :  its  intrigues,  its  grand  yet  really  gam- 
bling and  unscrupulous  enterprises,  tbe  long  years  of  pris- 
on and  authorship,  and  its  not  unfitting  close,  in  the  Eng- 
lish statesman's  death  by  the  headsman — so  tranquil  though 
violent,  so  ceremoniously  solemn,  so  composed,  so  dignified 
— such  a  contrast  to  all  other  forms  of  capital  punishment, 
then  or  since. 

Spenser  has  been  compared  to  Pindar,  and  contrasted 
with  Cervantes.  The  contrast,  in  point  of  humour,  and 
the  truth  that  humour  implies,  is  favourable  to  the  Span- 
iard:  in  point  of  moral  earnestness  and  sense  of  poetic 
beauty,  to  the  Englishman.  AVhat  Cervantes  only  thought 
ridiculous,  Spenser  used,  and  not  in  vain,  for  a  high  pur- 
pose. The  ideas  of  knight-errantry  were  really  more  ab- 
surd than  Spenser  allowed  himself  to  see.  But  that  idea 
of  the  gentleman  which  they  suggested,  that  picture  of 
human  life  as  a  scene  of  danger,  trial,  effort,  defeat,  recov- 
ery, which  they  lent  themselves  to  image  forth,  was  more 
worth  insisting  on,  than  the  exposure  of  their  folly  and 
extravagance.  There  was  nothing  to  be  made  of  them, 
Cervantes  thought ;  and  nothing  to  be  done,  but  to  laugh 
off  what  they  had  left,  among  living  Spaniards,  of  pom- 
pous imbecility  or  mistaken  pretensions.  Spenser,  knowing 
that  they  must  die,  yet  believed  that  out  of  them  might 
be   raised  something  nobler  and  more  real  —  enterprise, 


v.]  THE  FAERIE  QUEEN'E.  163 

duty,  resistance   to   evil,  refinement,  hatred   of   the   mean 
and  base.      The   energetic    and  high  -  reaching   manhood 
which  he  saw  in  the  remarkable  personages  round  him  he 
shadowed  forth  in  the  Faerie  Queene.     He  idealized  the 
excellences  and  the  trials  of  this  first  generation  of  Eng- 
lish gentlemen,  as  Bunyan  afterwards  idealized  the  piety, 
the  conflicts,  and  the  hopes  of  Puritan  religion.     Neither 
were  universal  types;    neither  were  perfect.     The  man- 
hood in  which  Spenser  delights,  with  all  that  was  admira- 
ble and  attractive  in  it,  had  still  much  of  boyish  incom- 
pleteness and  roughness :  it  had  noble  aims,  it  had  gen- 
erosity, it  had  loyalty,  it  had  a  very  real  reverence  for  pu- 
rity and  religion ;  but  it  Avas  young  in  experience  of  a  new 
world,  it  was  wanting  in  self-mastery,  it  was  often  pedan- 
tic and  self-conceited ;  it  was  an  easier  prey  than  it  ought 
to  have  been  to  discreditable  temptations.     And  there  is 
a  long  interval  between  any  of  Spenser's  superficial  and 
thin  conceptions  of  character,  and  such  deep  and  subtle 
\    creations  as  Hamlet  or  Othello,  just  as  Bunyan's  strong 
but  narrow  ideals  of  religion,  true  as  they  are  up  to  a  cer- 
tain point,  fall  short  of  the  length  and  breadth  and  depth 
of  what  Christianity  has  made  of  man,  and  may  yet  make 
of  him.     But  in  the  ways  which  Spenser  chose,  he  will  ah 
ways  delight  and  teach  us.    The  spectacle  of  what  is  heroic 
and  self-devoted,  of  honour  for  principle  and  truth,  set  be- 
fore us  with  so  much  insight  and  sympathy,  and  combined 
with  so  much  just  and  broad  observation  on  those  acci- 
dents and  conditions  of  our  mortal  state  which  touch  us 
all,  will  never  appeal  to  English  readers  in  vain,  till  we 
have  learned  a  new  language,  and  adopted  new  canons  of 
art,  of  taste,  and  of  morals.     It  is  not  merely  that  he  has 
left  imperishable   images  which  have   taken   their  place 
among  the  consecrated  memorials  of  poetry  and  the  house- 


164  SPENSER.  [chap.  t. 

hold  thoughts  of  all  cultivated  men.  But  he  has  perma- 
nently lifted  the  level  of  English  poetry  by  a  great  and 
sustained  effort  of  rich  and  varied  art,  in  which  one  main 
purpose  rules,  loyalty  to  what  is  noble  and  pure,  and  in 
which  this  main  purpose  subordinates  to  itself  every  feat- 
ure and  every  detail,  and  harmonizes  some  that  by  them- 
selves seem  least  in  keeping  with  it. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

SECOND    PART    OF    THE    FAERIE     QUEENE. — SPEXSER's    LAST 

YEARS. 

[1590-1599.] 

The  publication  of  the  Faerie  Queene  in  1590  had  made 
the  new  poet  of  the  Shepherd's  Calendar  a  famous  man. 
He  was  no  longer  merely  the  favourite  of  a  knot  of  en- 
thusiastic friends,  and  outside  of  them  only  recognized 
and  valued  at  his  true  measure  by  such  judges  as  Sidney 
and  Ralegh.  By  the  common  voice  of  all  the  poets  of 
his  time  he  was  now  acknowledged  as  the  first  of  living 
English  poets.  It  is  not  easy  for  us,  who  live  in  these 
late  times  and  are  familiar  with  so  many  literary  master- 
pieces, to  realize  the  surprise  of  a  first  and  novel  achieve- 
ment in  literature ;  the  effect  on  an  age,  long  and  eagerly 
seeking  after  poetical  expression,  of  the  appearance  at  last 
of  a  work  of  such  power,  richness,  and  finished  art. 

It  can  scarcely  be  doubted,  I  think,  from  the  bitter  sar- 
casms interspersed  in  his  later  poems,  that  Spenser  expect- 
ed more  from  his  triumph  than  it  brought  him.  It  open- 
ed no  way  of  advancement  for  him  in  England.  He  con- 
tinued for  a  while  in  that  most  ungrateful  and  unsatisfac- 
tory employment,  the  service  of  the  State  in  Ireland ;  and 
that  he  relinquished  in  1593.1    At  the  end  of  1591  he  was 

1  Who  is  Edmondus  Spenser,  Prebendary  of  Effin  (Elphin)?  in  a 
list  of  arrears  of  first-fruits ;  Calendar  of  State  Papers,  Ireland,  Dec. 


1G6  SPENSER.  [chap. 

again  at  Kilcolman.  He  had  written  and  probably  sent  to 
Ralegh,  though  he  did  not  publish  it  till  1595,  the  record 
already  quoted  of  the  last  two  years'  events,  Colin  Clout's 
come  home  again  —  his  visit,  under  Ralegh's  guidance,  to 
the  Court,  his  thoughts  and  recollections  of  its  great  ladies, 
his  generous  criticisms  on  poets,  the  people  and  courtiers 
whom  he  had  seen  and  heard  of;  how  he  had  been  daz- 
zled, how  he  had  been  disenchanted,  and  how  he  was  come 
home  to  his  Irish  mountains  and  streams  and  lakes,  to 
enjoy  their  beauty,  though  in  a  "  salvage  "  and  "  foreign  " 
land;  to  find  in  this  peaceful  and  tranquil  retirement 
something  far  better  than  the  heat  of  ambition  and  the 
intrigues  of  envious  rivalries;  and  to  contrast  with  the 
profanations  of  the  name  of  love  which  had  disgusted  him 
in  a  dissolute  society,  the  higher  and  purer  ideal  of  it 
which  he  could  honour  and  pursue  in  the  simplicity  of 
his  country  life. 

And  in  Ireland  the  rejected  adorer  of  the  Rosalind  of 
the  Shepherd's  Calendar  found  another  and  still  more 
perfect  Rosalind,  who,  though  she  was  at  first  inclined  to 
repeat  the  cruelty  of  the  earlier  one,  in  time  relented,  and 
received  such  a  dower  of  poetic  glory  as  few  poets  have 
bestowed  upon  their  brides.  It  has  always  appeared 
strange  that  Spenser's  passion  for  the  first  Rosalind  should 
have  been  so  lasting,  that  in  his  last  pastoral,  Colin  Cloufs 
come  home  again,  written  so  late  as  1591,  and  published 
after  he  was  married,  he  should  end  his  poem  by  revert- 
ing to  this  long-past  love  passage,  defending  her  on  the 
ground  of  her  incomparable  excellence  and  his  own  un- 
worthiness,  against   the   blame    of  friendly   "  shepherds," 

8, 1586,  p.  222.  Church  preferments  were  under  special  circum- 
stances allowed  to  be  held  by  laymen.  See  the  Queen's  "Instruc- 
tions," 1579  ;  in  Preface  to  Calendar  of  Carew  MSS.  1589-1600,  p.  ci. 


vi.]  SECOND  PART  OF  THE  FAERIE  QUEEXE.  107 

witnesses  of  the  "  languors  of  Lis  too  long  dying,"  and 
angry  with  her  liard-heartedness.  It  may  be  that,  accord- 
ing to  Spenser's  way  of  making  his  masks  and  figures  sug- 
gest but  not  fully  express  their  antitypes,1  Rosalind  here 
bears  the  image  of  the  real  mistress  of  this  time,  the 
"  country  lass,"  the  Elizabeth  of  the  sonnets,  who  was,  in 
fact,  for  a  while  as  unkind  as  the  earlier  Rosalind.  The 
history  of  this  later  wooing,  its  hopes  and  anguish,  its 
varying  currents,  its  final  unexpected  success,  is  the  sub- 
ject of  a  collection  of  Sonnets,  which  have  the  disadvan- 
tage of  provoking  comparison  with  the  Sonnets  of  Shake- 
spere.  There  h  no  want  in  them  of  grace  and  sweetness, 
and  they  ring  true  with  genuine  feeling  and  warm  affec- 
tion, though  they  have,  of  course,  their  share  of  the  con- 
ceits then  held  proper  for  love  poems.  But  they  want 
the  power  and  fire,  as  well  as  the  perplexing  mystery,  of 
those  of  the  greater  master.  His  bride  was  also  immor- 
talized as  a  fourth  among  the  three  Graces,  in  a  richly- 
painted  passage  in  the  last  book  of  the  Faerie  Queene. 
But  the  most  magnificent  tribute  to  her  is  the  great  "Wed- 
ding Ode,  the  Epithalamion,  the  finest  composition  of  its 
kind,  probably,  in  any  language  :  so  impetuous  and  un- 
flagging, so  orderly  and  yet  so  rapid  in  the  onward  march 
of  its  stately  and  varied  stanzas ;  so  passionate,  so  flash- 
ing with  imaginative  wealth,  yet  so  refined  and  self -re- 
strained. It  was  always  easy  for  Spenser  to  open  the 
floodgates  of  his  inexhaustible  fancy.     With  him, 

"  The  numbers  flow  as  fast  as  spring  doth  rise." 

But  here  he  has  thrown  into  his  composition  all  his  power 

1  "In  these  kind  of  historical  allusions  Spenser  usually  perplexes 
the  subject :  he  leads  you  on,  and  then  designedly  misleads  you." — 
Cptoti,  quoted  by  Craik,  ill.  p.  92. 


1G8  SPENSER.  [chap. 

of  concentration,  of  arrangement,  of  strong  and  harmoni- 
ous government  over  thought  and  image,  over  language 
and  measure  and  rhythm ;  and  the  result  is  unquestion- 
ably one  of  the  grandest  lyrics  in  English  poetry.  We 
have  learned  to  think  the  subject  unfit  for  such  free  po- 
etical treatment ;  Spenser's  age  did  not. 

Of  the  lady  of  whom  all  this  was  said,  and  for  whom 
all  this  was  written,  the  family  name  has  not  been  thought 
worth  preserving.     We  know  that  by  her  Christian  name 
she  was  a  namesake  of  the  great  queen,  and  of  Spenser's 
mother.     She  is  called  a  country  hiss,  which  may  mean 
anything ;  and  the  marriage  appears  to  have  been  solem- 
nized in  Cork  on  what  was  then  Midsummer  Day,  "  Bar- 
naby  the  Bright,"  the  day  when  "the  sun  is  in  his  cheer- 
ful height,"  June  H,  1594.     Except  that  she  survived  Spen- 
ser, that  she  married  again,  and  had  some  legal  quarrels 
with  one  of  her  own  sons  about  his  lands,  we  know  noth- 
ing more  about  her.     Of  two  of  the  children  whom  she 
brought  him,  the  names  have  been  preserved,  and  they  in- 
dicate that  in  spite  of  love  and  poetry,  and  the  charms  of 
Kilcolman,  Spenser  felt  as  Englishmen  feel  in  Australia  or 
in  India.     To  call  one  of  them  Si/lvanus,  and  the  other 
Peregrine,  reveals  to  us  that  Ireland  was  still  to  him  a 
"salvage  land,"  and  he  a  pilgrim  and  stranger  in  it;  as 
Moses  called  his  first-born  Gershom,  a  stranger  here — "for 
he  said,  I  have  been  a  stranger  in  a  strange  land." 

In  a  year  after  his  marriage,  he  sent  over  these  memo- 
rials of  it  to  be  published  in  London,  and  they  were  en- 
tered at  Stationers'  Hall  in  November,  1595.  The  same 
year  he  came  over  himself,  bringing  with  him  the  second 
instalment  of  the  Faerie  Qiiecne,  which  was  entered  for 
publication  the  following  January,  159£.  Thus  the  half 
<-f  the  projected  work  was  finished  ;  and  finished,  as  we 


ti.]  SECOND  PART  OF  THE  FAERIE  QUEEXE.  1G9 

know  from  one  of  the  Sonnets  (80),  before  his  marriage. 
After  his  long  "  race  through  Fairy  land,"  he  asks  leave 
to  rest,  and  solace  himself  with  his  "  love's  sweet  praise ;" 
and  then  "  as  a  steed  refreshed  after  toil,"  he  will  "  stout- 
ly that  second  worke  assoyle."  The  first  six  hooks  were 
published  together  in  1596.  He  remained  most  of  the 
year  in  London,  during  which  The  Four  Hymns  on  Love 
and  Beauty,  Earthly  and  Heavenly,  were  published ;  and 
also  a  Dirge  (Daphnaida)  on  Douglas  Howard,  the  wife 
of  Arthur  Gorges,  the  spirited  narrator  of  the  Island  Voy- 
age of  Essex  and  Ralegh,  written  in  1591  ;  and  a  "  spousal 
verse  "  (Prothalamion),  on  the  marriage  of  the  two  daugh- 
ters of  the  Earl  of  Worcester,  late  in  1596.  But  he  was 
only  a  visitor  in  London.  The  Prothalamion  contains  a 
final  record  of  his  disappointments  in  England. 

"  I,  (whom  sullein  care, 
Through  discontent  of  my  long  fruitlesse  stay 
In  Princes  Court,  and  expectation  vayne 
Of  idle  hopes,  which  still  doe  fly  away, 
Like  empty  shaddowes,  did  afflict  my  brayne,) 
Walkt  forth  to  ease  my  payne 
Along  the  shoare  of  silver  streaming  Themmes — " 

His  marriage  ought  to  have  made  him  happy.  He  pro- 
fessed to  find  the  highest  enjoyment  in  the  quiet  and  re- 
tirement of  country  life.  He  was  in  the  prime  of  life, 
successful  beyond  all  his  fellows  in  his  special  work,  and 
apparently  with  unabated  interest  in  what  remained  to  be 
done  of  it.  And  though  he  could  not  but  feel  himself 
at  a  distance  from  the  "  sweet  civility  "  of  England,  and 
socially  at  disadvantage  compared  to  those  whose  lines 
had  fallen  to  them  in  its  pleasant  places,  yet  nature,  which 
he  loved  so  well,  was  still  friendly  to  him,  if  men  were 
wild  and  dangerous.     He  is  never  weary  of  praising  the 

8* 


170  SPENSER.  [chap. 

natural  advantages  of  Ireland.     Speaking  of  the  North, 
he  says — 

"And  sure  it  is  yet  a  most  beautifull  and  sweet  countrey  as  any  is 
under  heaven,  seamed  throughout  with  many  goodly  rivers,  replenish- 
ed with  all  sortes  of  fish,  most  aboundantly  sprinckled  with  many 
sweet  Ilandes,  and  goodly  lakes,  like  litle  Inland  Seas,  that  will  carry 
even  ships  upon  theyr  waters,  adorned  with  goodly  woodes  fitt  for 
building  of  howses  and  shippes,  soe  comodiously,  as  that  yf  some 
princes  in  the  world  had  them,  they  would  soone  hope  to  be  lordes  of 
all  the  seas,  and  ere  long  of  all  the  world ;  also  full  of  good  portes 
and  havens  opening  upon  England  and  Scotland,  as  inviting  us  to 
come  to  them,  to  see  what  excellent  comodityes  that  countrey  can 
affoord,  besides  the  soyle  it  self  most  fertile,  fitt  to  yeeld  all  kind 
of  fruite  that  shal  be  comitted  therunto.  And  lastly,  the  heavens 
most  milde  and  temperat,  though  somewhat  more  moyst  then  the 
part  toward  the  West." 

His  own  home  at  Kilcolman  charmed  and  delighted 
him.  It  was  not  his  fault  that  its  trout  streams,  its  Mulla 
and  Fanchin,  are  not  as  famous  as  Walter  Scott's  Teviot 
and  Tweed,  or  Wordsworth's  Yarrow  and  Dnddon,  or  that 
its  hills,  Old  Mole,  and  Alio  Hill,  have  not  kept  a  poetic 
name  like  Helvellyn  and  "Eildon's  triple  height."  The}' 
have  failed  to  become  familiar  names  to  us.  But  the 
beauties  of  his  home  inspired  more  than  one  sweet  pas- 
toral picture  in  the  Faerie  Queene ;  and  in  the  last  frag- 
ment remaining  to  us  of  it,  he  celebrates  his  mountains 
and  woods  and  valleys  as  once  the  fabled  resort  of  the 
Divine  Huntress  and  her  Nymphs,  and  the  meeting-place 
of  the  Gods. 

There  was  one  drawback  to  the  enjoyment  of  his  Irish 
country  life,  and  of  the  natural  attractiveness  of  Kilcolman. 
"  Who  knows  not  Arlo  Hill  ?"  he  exclaims,  in  the  scene 
just  referred  to  from  the  fragment  on  Mutability.  "Arlo, 
the  best  and  fairest  hill  in  all  the  holy  island's  heights." 


vi.]  SPENSER'S  LAST  YEARS.  171 

It  was  well  known  to  all  Englishmen  who  bad  to  do  with 
the  South  of  Ireland.  How  well  it  was  known  in  the  Irish 
history  of  the  time,  may  be  seen  in  the  numerous  refer- 
ences to  it,  under  various  forms,  such  as  Aharlo,  Harlow, 
in  the  Index  to  the  Irish  Calendar  of  Papers  of  this  trou- 
blesome date,  and  to  continual  encounters  and  ambushes 
in  its  notoriously  dangerous  woods.  He  means  by  it  the 
highest  part  of  the  Galtee  range,  below  which  to  the  north, 
through  a  glen  or  defile,  runs  the  "  river  Aherlow."  Gait y- 
more,  the  summit,  rises,  with  precipice  and  gully,  more 
than  3000  feet  above  the  plains  of  Tipperary,  and  is  seen 
far  and  wide.  It  wras  connected  with  the  "great  wood," 
the  wild  region  of  forest,  mountain,  and  bog  which  stretch- 
ed half  across  Munster  from  the  Suir  to  the  Shannon.  It 
was  the  haunt  and  fastness  of  Irish  outlawry  and  rebellion 
in  the  South,  which  so  long  sheltered  Desmond  and  his 
followers.  Arlo  and  its  "  fair  forests,"  harbouring  "  thieves 
and  wolves,"  was  an  uncomfortable  neighbour  to  Kilcolman. 
The  poet  describes  it  as  ruined  by  a  curse  pronounced  on 
the  lovely  land  by  the  offended  goddess  of  the  Chase — 

"Which  too  too  true  that  laud's  in-dwellers  since  have  found." 

He  was  not  only  living  in  an  insecure  part,  on  the  very 
border  of  disaffection  and  disturbance,  but  like  every  Eng- 
lishman living  in  Ireland,  he  was  living  amid  ruins.  An 
English  home  in  Ireland,  however  fair,  was  a  home  on  the 
sides  of  ^Etna  or  Vesuvius :  it  stood  where  the  lava  flood 
had  once  passed,  and  upon  not  distant  fires.  Spenser  has 
left  us  his  thoughts  on  the  condition  of  Ireland,  in  a  paper 
written  between  the  two  rebellions,  some  time  between 
1595  and  1598,  after  the  twelve  or  thirteen  years  of  so- 
called  peace  which  followed  the  overthrow  of  Desmond, 
and  when  Tyrone's  rebellion  was  becoming  serious.      It 


172  SPENSER.  [chap. 

seems  to  Lave  been  much  copied  in  manuscript,  but,  though 
entered  for  publication  in  1598,  it  was  not  printed  till  long 
after  his  death,  in  1033.  A  copy  of  it  among  the  Irish 
papers  of  1598  shows  that  it  had  come  under  the  eyes 
of  the  English  Government.  It  is  full  of  curious  obser- 
vations, of  shrewd  political  remarks,  of  odd  and  confused 
ethnography ;  but  more  than  all  this,  it  is  a  very  vivid  and 
impressive  picture  of  what  Sir  Walter  Ralegh  called  "the 
common  woe  of  Ireland."'  It  is  a  picture  of  a  noble 
realm,  which  its  inhabitants  and  its  masters  did  not  know 
what  to  do  with  ;  a  picture  of  hopeless  mistakes,  misunder- 
standings, misrule ;  a  picture  of  piteous  misery  and  suffer- 
ing on  the  part  of  a  helpless  and  yet  untameable  and  mis- 
chievous population  —  of  unrelenting  and  scornful  rigour 
on  the  part  of  their  stronger  rulers,  which  yet  was  abso- 
lutely ineffectual  to  reclaim  or  subdue  them.  "  Men  of 
great  wisdom,"  Spenser  writers,  "  have  often  wished  that 
all  that  land  were  a  sea-pool."  Everything,  people  thought, 
had  been  tried,  and  tried  in  vain. 

"  Marry,  soe  there  have  beene  divers  good  plottes  and  wise  coun- 
sells  cast  alleready  about  reformation  of  that  realme ;  but  they  say, 
it  is  the  f  atall  desteny  of  that  land,  that  noe  purposes,  whatsoever  are 
meant  for  her  good,  will  prosper  or  take  good  effect,  which,  whether 
it  proceede  from  the  very  Genius  of  the  soyle,  or  influence  of  the 
starres,  or  that  Allmighty  God  hath  not  yet  appoynted  the  time  of 
her  reformation,  or  that  He  reserveth  her  in  this  unquiett  state  still 
for  some  secrett  scourdge,  which  shall  by  her  come  unto  England,  it 
is  hard  to  be  knowen,  but  yet  much  to  be  feared." 

The  unchanging  fatalities  of  Ireland  appear  in  Spenser's 
account  in  all  their  well-known  forms;  some  of  them,  as 
if  they  were  what  we  were  reading  of  yesterday.  Through- 
out the  work  there  is  an  honest  zeal  for  order,  an  honest 
hatred  of  falsehood,  sloth,  treachery,  and  disorder.      But 


vi.J  SPEXSER'S  LAST  YEARS.  173 

there  does  not  appear  a  trace  of  consideration  for  what 
the  Irish  might  feel  or  desire  or  resent.  He  is  sensible, 
indeed,  of  English  mismanagement  and  vacillation,  of  the 
way  in  which  money  and  force  were  wasted  by  not  being 
boldly  and  intelligently  employed;  he  enlarges  on  that 
power  of  malignity  and  detraction  which  he  has  figured  in 
the  Blatant  Beast  of  the  Faerie  Queene :  but  of  English 
cruelty,  of  English  injustice,  of  English  rapacity,  of  Eng- 
lish prejudice,  lie  is  profoundly  unconscious.  He  only 
sees  that  things  are  getting  worse  and  more  dangerous ; 
and  though  he,  like  others,  has  his  "plot"  for  the  subjuga- 
tion and  pacification  of  the  island,  and  shrinks  from  noth- 
ing in  the  way  of  severity,  not  even,  if  necessary,  from  ex- 
termination, his  outlook  is  .one  of  deep  despair.  He  cal- 
culates the  amount  of  force,  of  money,  of  time,  necessary 
to  break  down  all  resistance ;  he  is  minute  and  perhaps 
skilful  in  building  his  forts  and  disposing  his  garrisons ; 
he  is  very  earnest  about  the  necessity  of  cutting  broad 
roads  through  the  woods,  and  building  bridges  in  place  of 
fords ;  he  contemplates  restored  churches,  parish  schools, 
a  better  order  of  clergy.  But  where  the  spirit  was  to 
come  from  of  justice,  of  conciliation,  of  steady  and  firm 
resistance  to  corruption  and  selfishness,  he  gives  us  no 
light.  AVhat  it  comes  to  is,  that  with  patience,  temper, 
and  public  spirit,  Ireland  might  be  easily  reformed  and 
brought  into  order :  but  unless  he  hoped  for  patience,  tem- 
per, and  public  spirit  from  Lord  Essex,  to  Avhom  he  seems 
to  allude  as  the  person  "  on  whom  the  eye  of  England  is 
fixed,  and  our  last  hopes  now  rest,"  he  too  easily  took  for 
granted  what  was  the  real  difficulty.  His  picture  is  exact 
and  forcible,  of  one  side  of  the  truth ;  it  seems  beyond  the 
thought  of  an  honest,  well-informed,  and  noble-minded 
Englishman  that  there  was  another  side. 


174  SPENSER.  <  [chap. 

But  lie  was  right  in  his  estimate  of  the  danger,  and  of 
the  immediate  evils  which  produced  it.     He  was  right  in 
thinking  that  want  of  method,  want  of  control,  want  of 
confidence,  and  an  untimely  parsimony,  prevented  severity 
from  having  a  fair  chance  of  preparing  a  platform  for  re- 
form and  conciliation.     He  was  right  in  his  conviction  of 
the  inveterate  treachery  of  the  Irish  Chiefs,  partly  the  re- 
sult of  ages  of  mismanagement,  but  now  incurable.    While 
he  was  writing,  Tyrone,  a  craftier  and  bolder  man  than 
Desmond,  was  taking  up  what  Desmond  had  failed  in. 
He  was  playing  a  game  with  the  English  authorities  which, 
as  things  then  were,  is  almost  beyond  belief.     He  was  out- 
witting or  cajoling  the  veterans  of  Irish  government,  who 
knew  perfectly  well  what  he  was,  and  yet  let  him  amuse 
them  with  false  expectations — men  like  Sir  John  Norreys, 
who  broke  his  heart  when  he  found  out  how  Tyrone  had 
baffled  and  made  a  fool  of  him.     Wishing  to  train  time 
for  help  from  Spain,  and  to  extend  the  rebellion,  he  revolt- 
ed, submitted,  sued  for  pardon,  but  did  not  care  to  take  it 
when  granted,  fearlessly  presented  himself  before  the  Eng- 
lish officers -while  he  was  still  beleaguering  their  posts,  led 
the  English  forces  a  chase  through  mountains  and  bogs, 
inflicted  heavy  losses  on  them,  and  yet  managed  to  keep 
negotiations  open  as  long  as  it  suited  him.     From  1594  to 
1598  the  rebellion  had  been  gaining  ground;  it  had  crept 
round   from   Ulster   to   Connaugdit,  from   Connausht  to 
Leinster,  and  now   from  Connaught  to  the   borders    of 
Minister.      But  Munster,  with  its  English  landlords  and 
settlers,  was   still,  on   the   whole,  quiet.      At  the   end  of 
1597,  the  Council  at  Dublin  reported  home  that  "Mun- 
ster was  the  best  tempered  of  all  the  rest  at  this  present 
time;  for  that  though  not  long  since  sundry  loose  per- 
sons" (among  them  the  base  sons  of  Lord  Roche,  Spcn- 


vi.]  SPENSER'S  LAST  YEARS.  115 

ser's  adversary  in  land  suits)  "became  Robin  Hoods  and 
slew  some  of  the  undertakers,  dwelling  scattered  in  thatch- 
ed bouses  and  remote  places,  near  to  woods  and  fastnesses, 
yet  now  tbey  are  cut  off,  and  no  known  disturbers  left  wbo 
are  like  to  make  any  dangerous  alteration  on  the  sudden." 
But  they  go  on  to  add  that  they  "  have  intelligence  that 
many  are  practised  withal  from  the  North,  to  be  of  com- 
bination with  the  rest,  and  stir  coals  in  Munster,  whereby 
the  whole  realm  might  be  in  a  general  uproar."  And 
they  repeat  their  opinion  that  they  must  be  prepared  for 
a  "  universal  Irish  war,  intended  to  shake  off  all  English 
government." 

In  April,  1598,  Tyrone  received  a  new  pardon;  in  the 
following  Au crust  he  surprised  an  English  army  near  Ar- 
magh,  and  shattered  it  with  a  defeat  the  bloodiest  and 
most  complete  ever  received  by  the  English  in  Ireland. 
Then  the  storm  burst,     Tvrone  sent  a  force  into  Munster: 

ml 

and  once  more  Munster  rose.  It  was  a  rising  of  the 
dispossessed  proprietors  and  the  whole  native  population 
against  the  English  undertakers;  a  "ragged  number  of 
rogues  and  boys,"  as  the  English  Council  describes  them  ; 
rebel  kernes,  pouring  out  of  the  "  great  wood,"  and  from 
Arlo,  the  "  chief  fastness  of  the  rebels."  Even  the  chiefs, 
usually  on  good  terms  with  the  English,  could  not  resist 
the  stream.  Even  Thomas  Norreys,  the  President,  was 
surprised,  and  retired  to  Cork,  bringing  down  on  himself 
a  severe  reprimand  from  the  English  Government.  "You 
might  better  have  resisted  than  you  did,  considering  the 
many  defensible  houses  and  castles  possessed  by  the  under- 
takers, who,  for  aught  we  can  hear,  were  by  no  means  com- 
forted nor  supported  by  you,  but  either  from  lack  of  com- 
fort from  }'ou,  or  out  of  mere  cowardice,  fled  away  from 
the  rebels  on  the  first  alarm."     "Whereupon,"  says  Cox, 


1 7(1  SPENSER.  [cnAP. 

the  Irish  historian,  "  the  Munsterians,  generally,  rebel  in 
October,  and  kill,  murder,  ravish  and  spoil  without  mercy ; 
and  Tyrone  made  James  Fitz-Thoraas  Earl  of  Desmond, 
on  condition  to  be  tributary  to  him ;  he  was  the  hand- 
somest man  of  his  time,  and  is  commonly  called  the  Su- 
gan  Earl." 

On  the  last  day  of  the  previous  September  (Sept.  30, 
1598),  the  English  Council  had  written  to  the  Irish  Gov- 
ernment to  appoint  Edmund  Spenser,  Sheriff  of  the  Coun- 
ty of  Cork,  "a  gentleman  dwelling  in  the  County  of  Cork, 
who  is  so  well  known  unto  you  all  for  his  good  and  com- 
mendable parts,  being  a  man  endowed  with  good  knowl- 
edge in  learning,  and  not  unskilful  or  without  experience 
in  the  wars."  In  October,  Munster  was  in  the  hands  of 
the  insurgents,  who  were  driving  Norreys  before  them,  and 
sweeping  out  of  house  and  castle  the  panic-stricken  Eng- 
lish settlers.  On  December  9th,  Norreys  wrote  home  a 
despatch  about  the  state  of  the  province.  This  despatch 
was  sent  to  England  by  Spenser,  as  we  learn  from  a  sub- 
sequent despatch  of  Norreys  of  December  21. '  It  was 
received  at  Whitehall,  as  appears  from  Robert  Cecil's  en- 
dorsement, on  the  24th  of  December.  The  passage  from 
Ireland  seems  to  have  been  a  long  one.  And  this  is  the 
last  original  document  which  remains  about  Spenecr. 

What  happened  to  him  in  the  rebellion  we  learn  gener- 
ally from  two  sources,  from  Camden's  History,  and  from 
Drummond  of  Ilawthornden's  Recollections  of  Ben  Jon- 
son's  conversations  with  him  in  1619.  In  the  Munster  in- 
surrection of  October,  the  new  Earl  of  Desmond's  follow- 
ers did  not  forget  that  Kilcolman  was  an  old  possession  of 
the  Desmonds.     It  was  sacked  and  burnt.     Jonson  related 

1  I  am  indebted  for  this  reference  to  Mr.  Hans  Claude  Hamilton. 
See  also  his  Preface  to  Calendar  of  Irish  Papers,  1574-85,  p.  lxxvi. 


vi.]  SPENSER'S  LAST  YEARS.  Ill 

that  a  little  new-born  child  of  Spenser's  perished  in  the 
flames.  Spenser  and  his  wife  escaped,  and  he  came  over 
to  England,  a  ruined  and  heart-broken  man.  He  died 
Jan.  16,  159|- ;  "  he  died,"  said  Jonson,  "  for  lack  of  bread, 
in  King  Street  [Westminster],  and  refused  twenty  pieces 
sent  to  him  by  my  Lord  of  Essex,  saying  that  he  had  no 
time  to  spend  them."  He  was  buried  in  the  Abbey,  near 
the  grave  of  Chaucer,  and  his  funeral  was  at  the  charge  of 
the  Earl  of  Essex.  Beyond  this  we  know  nothing ;  noth- 
ing about  the  details  of  his  escape,  nothing  of  the  fate  of 
his  manuscripts,  or  the  condition  in  which  he  left  his  work, 
nothing  about  the  suffering  he  went  through  in  England. 
All  conjecture  is  idle  waste  of  time.  "We  only  know  that 
the  first  of  English  poets  perished  miserably  and  prema- 
turely, one  of  the  many  heavy  sacrifices  which  the  evil  fort- 
une of  Ireland  has  cost  to  England ;  one  of  many  illus- 
trious victims  to  the  madness,  the  evil  customs,  the  ven- 
geance of  an  ill-treated  and  ill-governed  people. 

One  Irish  rebellion  brought  him  to  Ireland,  another 
drove  him  out  of  it.  Desmond's  brought  him  to  pass  his 
life  there,  and  to  fill  his  mind  with  the  images  of  what 
was  then  Irish  life,  with  its  scenery,  its  antipathies,  its 
tempers,  its  chances,  and  necessities.  Tyrone's  swept  him 
from  Ireland,  beggared  and  hopeless.  Ten  years  after  his 
death,  a  bookseller,  reprinting  the  six  books  of  the  Faerie 
Queene,  added  two  cantos  and  a  fragment,  On  Mutability, 
supposed  to  be  part  of  the  Legend,  of  Constancy.  Where 
and  how  he  got  them  he  has  not  told  us.  It  is  a  strange 
and  solemn  meditation  on  the  universal  subjection  of  all 
things  to  the  inexorable  conditions  of  change.  It  is 
strange,  with  its  odd  episode  and  fable  which  Spenser  can- 
not resist  about  his  neighbouring  streams,  its  borrowings 
from  Chaucer,  and  its  quaint  mixture  of  mythology  with 


178  SPENSER.  [chap. 

sacred  and  with  Irish  scenery,  Olympus  and  Tabor,  and 
his  own  rivers  and  mountains.  But  it  is  full  of  his  power 
over  thought  and  imagery ;  and  it  is  quite  in  a  different 
key  from  anything  in  the  first  six  books.  It  has  an  under- 
tone of  awe-struck  and  pathetic  sadness. 

"  What  man  that  sees  the  ever  whirling  wheel 
Of  Change,  the  which  all  mortal  things  doth  sway, 
But  that  thereby  doth  find  and  plainly  feel 
How  Mutability  in  them  doth  play 
Her  cruel  sports  to  many  men's  decay." 

He  imagines  a  mighty  Titaness,  sister  of  Hecate  and  Bel- 
lona,  most  beautiful  and  most  terrible,  who  challenges  uni- 
versal dominion  over  all  things  in  earth  and  heaven,  sun 
and  moon,  planets  and  stars,  times  and  seasons,  life  and 
death  ;  and  finally  over  the  wills  and  thoughts  and  natures 
of  the  gods,  even  of  Jove  himself ;  and  who  pleads  her 
cause  before  the  awful  Mother  of  all  things,  figured  as 
Chaucer  had  already  imagined  her  : 

"  Great  Nature,  ever  young,  yet  full  of  eld  ; 
Still  moving,  yet  unmoved  from  her  stead  ; 
Unseen  of  any,  yet  of  all  beheld, 
Thus  sitting  on  her  throne." 

He  imagines  all  the  powers  of  the  upper  and  nether  worlds 
assembled  before  her  on  his  own  familiar  hills,  instead  of 
Olympus,  where  she  shone  like  the  Vision  which  "dazed" 
those  "three  sacred  saints"  on  "Mount  Thabor."  Before 
her  pass  all  things  known  of  men,  in  rich  and  picturesque 
procession ;  the  Seasons  pass,  and  the  Months,  and  the 
Hours,  and  Day  and  Night,  Life,  as  "  a  fair  young  lusty 
boy,"  Death,  grim  and  grisly — 

"  Yet  is  he  nought  but  parting  of  the  breath, 
Ne  ought  to  see,  but  like  a  shade  to  weene, 
Unbodied,  unsouPd,  unheard,  unseene — " 


vi.]  SPENSER'S  LAST  YEARS.  if 9 

and  on  all  of  them  the  claims  of  the  Titaness,  Mutability, 
are  acknowledged.  Nothing  escapes  her  sway  in  this 
present  state,  except  Nature,  which,  while  seeming  to 
change,  never  really  changes  her  ultimate  constituent  ele- 
ments, or  her  universal  laws.  But  when  she  seemed  to 
have  extorted  the  admission  of  her  powers,  Nature  silences 
her.  Change  is  apparent,  and  not  real ;  and  the  time  is 
coming  when  all  change  shall  end  in  the  final  changeless 
change. 

"  '  I  well  consider  all  that  ye  have  said, 
And  find  that  all  things  stedfastnesse  do  hate 
And  changed  be ;  yet,  being  rightly  wayd, 
They  are  not  changed  from  their  first  estate ; 
But  by  their  change  their  being  do  dilate, 
And  turning  to  themselves  at  length  againe, 
Do  worke  their  owne  perfection  so  by  fate  : 
Then  over  them  Change  doth  not  rule  and  raigne, 
But  they  raigne  over  Change,  and  do  their  states  maintaine. 

"  '  Cease  therefore,  daughter,  further  to  aspire, 
And  thee  content  thus  to  be  rul'd  by  mee, 
For  thy  decay  thou  seekst  by  thy  desire ; 
But  time  shall  come  that  all  shall  changed  bee, 
And  from  thenceforth  none  no  more  change  shal  see.' 
So  was  the  Titancsse  put  downe  and  whist, 
And  Jove  confirm'd  in  his  imperiall  see. 
Then  was  that  whole  assembly  quite  dismist, 
And  Natur's  selfe  did  vanish,  whither  110  man  wist." 

What  he  meant — how  far  he  was  thinking  of  those  daring 
arguments  of  religious  and  philosophical' change  of  which 
the  world  was  beginning  to  be  full,  we  cannot  now  tell. 
The  allegory  was  not  finished :  at  least  it  is  lost  to  us. 
We  have  but  a  fragment  more,  the  last  fragment  of  his 
poetry.  It  expresses  the  great  commonplace  which  so  im- 
pressed itself  on  the  men  of  that  time,  and  of  which  his 


180  SPEXSER.  [chap.ti. 

works  are  full.  No  words  could  be  more  appropriate  to 
be  the  last  words  of  one  who  was  so  soon  to  be  in  his  own 
person  such  an  instance  of  their  truth.  They  are  fit  closing 
words  to  mark  his  tragic  and  pathetic  disappearance  from 
the  high  and  animated  scene  in  which  his  imagination 
worked.  And  they  record,  too,  the  yearning  hope  of  rest 
not  extinguished  by  terrible  and  fatal  disaster : 

"When  I  bethiuke  me  on  that  speech  whyleare 
Of  Mutabilitie,  and  well  it  way, 
Me  seemes,  that  though  she  all  unworthy  were 
Of  the  Ileav'ns  Rule ;  yet,  very  sooth  to  say, 
In  all  things  else  she  beares  the  greatest  sway : 
Which  makes  me  loath  this  state  of  life  so  tickle, 
And  love  of  things  so  vaine  to  cast  away ; 
Whose  flowring  pride,  so  fading  and  so  fickle, 
Short  Time  shall  soon  cut  down  with  his  consuming  sickle. 

"  Then  gin  I  thinke  on  that  which  Nature  sayd, 
Of  that  same  time  when  no  more  Change  shall  be, 
But  stedfast  rest  of  all  things,  firmely  stayd 
Upon  the  pillours  of  Eternity, 
Ihat  is  contrayr  to  Mutabilitie; 
For  all  that  moveth  doth  in  Change  delight : 
But  thenceforth  all  shall  rest  eternally 
With  Him  that  is  the  God  of  Sabaoth  bight : 
0 !  that  great  Sabaoth  God,  grant  me  that  Sabaoths  sight." 


THE   END. 


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